Kropf: Labor a consideration in announcing crop figures
Kropf: Labor a consideration in announcing crop figures
Crop estimates for Michigan’s apple production need to come with an asterisk, suggested Roger Kropf, owner of Core Farms LLC, located in Hartford, MI.
There can be estimates for total production. But the real question is, how much fruit will be harvested if Michigan has a labor shortage, as occurred in 2013?
Even if fruit is eventually harvested in November, as mostly occurred last year, the quality of late-harvested fruit is below that of a timely harvest, Kropf said.
Last season, Core Farms’ apple growers needed to finish harvest by Nov. 1. There was a lack of labor and harvest ran to Nov. 13. Two thousand bins were picked after Nov. 1, which had been the deadline to harvest optimum quality.
Furthermore, the equivalent of 700 bins “was not picked and went on the ground. I had all the expensive stuff (agricultural inputs) on them, but it took too long to get them off the trees.”
Kropf wasn’t alone in lacking labor. “I got calls from other growers, who wondered if I had extra people.”
The basis of the problem “was primarily from a lack of federal action to allow a program to work. It cost me a lot of money last year. You wouldn’t believe it.”
“The issue is that you can’t run with your head in the sand” as is happening in Washington, D.C., he added. “No one is doing what they’re supposed to be doing. They have no idea what this is costing us.”
For this fall, Kropf said he hopes to see a let-up in the labor situation.
“The labor situation is very serious,” he said. “I wish someone had an answer. From my point of view, there is no assistance from where it should come.”
The assistance must come from Washington D.C. legislation and Kropf is unhappy with all parties there for inaction on the critical matter of immigration and its relationship with farm labor in the United States.
The H-2A program is an option but it is “very difficult” because of the requirements involved. These include providing worker air transportation from and back to the laborers’ home country before and after the season. There are other requirements, such as providing ground transportation, while the workers are present. With H-2A “the cost of harvest will jump for the entirety of the industry.”
