Every year, when I try to come up with a column topic for the month of May, my tendency is to focus on labor. This year’s May issue of Digger is focused on sustainability, and that only leads me to an angering paradox.
Many things about the nursery industry are sustainable — but our labor situation isn’t one of them. In order for our family businesses to survive long-term, we need a sustainable and willing workforce. For the span of 12 years as your executive director, our situation has been comparable to Sisyphus, the man from Greek myth who was condemned to roll a boulder up to the top of a mountain, only to have it roll back to the bottom, again and again.
Our boulder is immigration reform. Trying to pass common sense legislation has been like a task of eternal punishment. We put in the effort, but never quite get there.
A new age of technology
Our nursery and greenhouse industry is a mature one. We continually refine and improve our production processes. The rise of the industry in Oregon is proof positive that God blessed this fertile state with soil, water and a favorable climate, but we always must do more with less of everything, including land, labor and water.
Well, almost everything. We do get more government regulation, and more pressure to urbanize our irreplaceable farmland. But despite these challenges, nobody produces nursery stock better than Oregon growers.
Technology seems to advance at a frenetic pace, and we can only hope to keep up. A few decades ago, GPS planting, smart sprayers for pesticides and controlling greenhouses at the touch of smartphone app would have been laughed off.
Look around now at other industries. The apple industry has mechanized pickers.
What’s next for us? Artificial Intelligence is coming to everything, and it will hit like a freight train when it arrives. Mechanization and AI can assist in production, but nothing replaces the grower’s knowledge, adaptability, vision and the hand-crafted work that needs to be done.
The five-point plan
When OAN leaders went to Washington, D.C. back in March, we had a real “a-ha” moment. U.S. Rep. Cliff Bentz, a friend to the industry and conservative Republican representing Eastern Oregon, cut to the chase and told us that a single bill incorporating everything the industry needs is not going to happen. It’s folly to expect it. Instead of protesting, I had to concede he was right.
We’ve tried the same dang thing over and over for 37 years, and it has not rendered anything of substance. Hoping for Lucky Number 38? Hope is not a strategy.
So now, we have a five-point plan. Let’s do what we need to do, however it can happen. Two bills, five — hell, eight. Let’s get moving and get the elements done.
Adjustment of status for those in the United States. The association used to tie its immigration policy to citizenship for all immigrant workers. We did this because it is what we thought the workers wanted. The ugly truth is that the broken immigration system, over three plus decades, has created a dynamic where the worker may be authorized but other family members may be undocumented. Let’s clear the slate and adjust the status of all residents.
Keep and update the current H-2A and H-2B visas. The U.S. economy has regional needs and dynamics. Some work visas work. H-2A and H-2B have challenges and need to be flexible for returning workers, but if growers like a program, any reform packages should allow these programs to continue.
Create a new visa system. If we are to fix the labor supply issue, let’s actually fix it. The solution is not a mystery. Create a new class of visas and include a renewable five-year rollover process. The visa would require that the worker be employed, with no criminal record, but the program needs to be flexible enough to let workers return to their home country and come back to the States. The beauty of this visa type is that it can expand and contract with the U.S. economy. When the nation needs more workers, the visa numbers can meet the labor need.
Create a sensible “touch back” provision. It is costly for an undocumented American resident to go to their country of origin strictly to meet a bureaucratic requirement at a consulate or embassy. That’s especially true if they have been in the U.S. for decades. Estimates I have pulled together say that the State Department would need to triple its budget to accommodate the influx of applicants. There are trust issues as well. Workers may not comply out of concern the federal government might not allow them back. Instead of all that, why not let people apply to U.S. Customs at their nearest international airport and “enter” the U.S. legally there? This will certainly have a fiscal impact, but it should be a lot less since it will be spread out across the United States.
Once 1–4 are enacted, then E-Verify. Workers are not the only ones with trust issues. The OAN would accept electronic verification going forward if all workers, not just those in agriculture, can be put through the system.
Oregon’s congressional delegation gets it. Oregon is in a good position to get to yes with our bipartisan congressional delegation. They have heard from dozens of OAN leaders that their inability to resolve the labor problem is an artificial cap on the industry’s growth.
You want to talk sustainability? Our industry supplies trees and plants to sequester carbon and help address climate change. To do that, we need a labor supply, and for that, we need immigration reform.
It is in everyone’s interest to make this happen. Oregon will be vocal, but I call upon the other sectors of agriculture to put aside differences and help change the trajectory of our industry. My mother used to say, “Get the hook out of your heinie and get to work.” It’s time Congress listened to my mother.
Jeff Stone, OAN Executive Director
Director’s Desk from the May 2023 issue of Digger magazine | Download PDF
