Labor Fears For Tree Fruit Industry

Labor Fears For Tree Fruit Industry. I’m Greg Martin with today’s Fruit Grower Report.

During the 2012 Washington State Horticultural Association’s annual convention and expo a lot of talk was about this years labor force. Bruce Grim, executive director of the association discusses what the future may hold.

GRIM: Well that’s the $64 dollar question. I feel a little like the Charlie Brown/Lucy cartoon where we’re going to get it done and the ball gets placed down and as soon as you kick at it, it gets pulled away. So there’s a lot of talk right now that the administration is going to be very much behind getting a solution to this immigration issue and some say coming out of the last election the Republicans were damaged at the polls if you will by the stand of some of the party with regard to the immigration issue with Latino voters and that’s a growing segment of the population.

The 2012 growing season was fortunately spread out enough that labor was not a major issue.

GRIM: Cut it however you want. The reality is that we are probably in a better position to see immigration reform and comprehensive reform and some type of guest worker program. We’re probably in a better position to see that happen sometime after the first of the year, early on in the next session I think than we have been in a number of years. Now I say that with great trepidation because we’ve felt the promise from Congress before that has been unfulfilled.

That’s today’s Fruit Grower Report. I’m Greg Martin on the Ag Information Network.