Wine Grapes 3 Oct 13

For California AG today, I'm Mike Stephens. There are big challenges to this year's wine grape harvest. We continue speaking with Michael Miller, Director of Government Relations for the California Association of Wine Grape Growers. He exposes the challenges and hurdles from labor to transportation and this year's wine grape harvest.

Speaker2: There are all kinds of issues around logistics and ag labor. You know, a lot of people are not working right now. They the availability of agricultural workers is just historic low. And I talked to some grocers that they've never had such a hard time finding people to work harvest. And it's a real challenge because when the grape is ready to be picked, it's ready to be picked and you need to get through out there. You need to get the job done and the truck that's there to take the trailer to the winery. So if you've got a shortage of truck drivers, you've got a shortage of ag workers in the field. That's going to be a big challenge to the harvest. So there are those hurdles that from what I'm hearing from our growers, they're beating them head on and they're doing everything they can to know to address the issue. Some some growers are paying 30 or 40 dollars an hour during harvest. And there's just a real demand that's that the workforce can't meet right now. So that is a challenge. Labor and logistics are challenge right now.