Testimony

On

Critical Need for Immigration Reform

By

J Allen Carnes

President, Winter Garden Produce

President, Texas Vegetable Association

Before U.S. House Agriculture Committee

On

October 4, 2007

Chairman Peterson and members of the committee, thank you for the
opportunity to testify before the House Agricultural Committee to share
with you my perspectives on the labor shortage as it relates to my
business and to the Texas Vegetable and Citrus industries as a whole.

My name is J Allen Carnes. I am the President of Winter Garden Produce,
Inc., Vice- president of our family farming operation, Carnes Farms
Inc., and the current chair of the Texas Vegetable Association. My
family has been in the agriculture and produce industry in Texas since
1950. We currently farm over 3000 acres around the Uvalde area in South
Texas. On those farms, we have grown a wide range of agricultural
products, one of the most important being vegetables. My family began
marketing and shipping a select group of those in 1992. My father, Eddy
Carnes, along with his father and brother formed Winter Garden Produce
to ship product grown on our farms. In addition, we contracted with
other farms in the area to harvest sell and ship their commodities. I
began working for Winter Garden Produce full time in 1997 and became
President of the company in 2006. At the present time, we harvest and
ship over 2000 acres of fresh fruits and vegetables. This translates
into approximately 1.2 million packages per year and over 10 million in
annual gross sales.

Due to the amount of product that we ship, we require a large workforce.
This work force is very unique because of the seasonal nature and the
labor requirements of growing, harvesting, and packing our various
products. Our labor needs often vary widely from one day to the next.
Because of these factors, we see a large fluctuation in the number of
people we employ on a daily bases. Winter Garden Produce begins harvest
season in late October. During this time we employ 80-120 people per
day. At the peak point of harvest season, May through June, we employ
400-450 people per day.

To satisfy the large and varying workforce we utilize several channels,
most of which are through contract labor. We use between 4 and 8
different labor contractors. These contractors provide us with harvest
crews ranging from 25-100 people. Our area uses a large amount of
Mexican labor that commutes on a daily or weekly basis to fill a portion
of these crews. To the best of our knowledge, these are legal immigrant
workers. A variety of legal channels allow them to work and live in the
U.S., but they choose to live in Mexico and commute into the area on a
daily or weekly basis. Many "illegals" were given a legal right to work
and reside under the 1986 IRCA legislation. Most workers who could prove
they were living in the U.S. at that time were given identification
cards. Workers who could prove they were working in agriculture and
crossing the border on a regular basis were given an Agricultural ID
card. During harvest season, on a given day, 15-50 people will cross out
of Mexico with one of these cards to work for Winter Garden Produce. At
peak harvest time, we use 50-100 people who have these documents and
cross from Mexico each day. Also during peak harvest time, our company
and other companies around us use migrant labor that comes up out of the
Rio Grande Valley. Vans of family and friends follow the onion harvest.
They start in the valley, then come and work in our area, and then move
on to work in New Mexico and Colorado. These two groups of workers,
along with a diminishing number of local workers, make up the vast
majority of our harvesting crews.

The natural U.S. based labor force in our area has been in short supply
for as long as I can remember. In the last two years, we have seen our
labor shortage become much more severe. The Texas unemployment numbers
fell to 4.2 during the month of August. One year ago, the rate was 4.9
%. So far this year, employers in Texas have added 229,000 jobs, up 2 %.
In Uvalde County, the labor force was estimated at 11,476 with 594
unemployed. This rate is at 5.2% down .6% from where it was last month.
We have an imbalance between our local population and our workforce
needs. The total population of people 18 years and older in Uvalde
County is only 10,094 and our civilian workforce is 11,476. We have a
junior college and some of those over 18 are in school. We have more
people in our workforce than are in the working age population. We have
to attract people from outside our county to meet our workforce needs.
Given this huge imbalance between jobs and workers, it is not surprising
that "American workers" gravitate to the more attractive jobs, leaving
the less attractive jobs (agriculture) to be filled by immigrant
workers. Second, our industry in Texas is presently in its "off-
season." Our shipping season begins in October and lasts until July of
the following year. Many of my workers are employed 9 to 10 months out
of the year and then collect unemployment the other two. These August
2007 unemployment numbers include a big portion of the local
agricultural labor force. We see a local labor force that cannot fill
all of our harvest labor force needs. We must have outside labor in
order to survive.

Because of our close proximity to Mexico, our area has always been able
to meet our additional labor needs during the spring onion harvest by
drawing workers out of Mexico. As a result of the IRCA legislation of
1986, an estimated 1.2 million farm workers were legalized, many of
which had been working in the fields around Uvalde since the 1940's and
1950's. Some of the workforce that was legalized in 1986 is still being
utilized today. According to a Texas A&M University survey done in the
spring of 2007, an average of 48% of all labor used to harvest spring
onions is estimated to come from Mexico and is utilized by about
two-thirds of the firms shipping onions. Approximately 39 % of the
workers coming from Mexico cross daily and 61% of those who cross weekly
remain in the United States for the duration of the harvest. But as I
note that IRCA provided some short term relief of worker shortages, I
would be remiss if I did not tell you that IRCA did not come close to
solving the long-term labor woes in the agricultural field. In the late
1980's after IRCA, as few as 5% of agricultural workers were in the
country illegally, and according to the National Agricultural Worker
Survey, by 2005 that number had risen to 76%. By some counts there are
as many as 1.5 million illegal workers in the agricultural industry.
Looking at the numbers, IRCA legislation did nothing to provide a long
term legal workforce in agriculture. Within the last few years, this
supply of legal Mexican workers has been on steady decline, and
companies such as ours struggle to secure a legal workforce to survive.
The legal workforce out of Mexico that the agriculture industry in Texas
employs is declining. These workers are becoming older and older and
there is currently no viable legal way to replace them with younger
workers. The workforce that still exists is having an increasingly
difficult time crossing the border in a legal manner. Crossing time has
tripled. Three to four years ago, it took half an hour to cross the
border legally to work every day. Now it takes this legal workforce as
much as 3 hours to cross the border.

Another portion of our work force is made up of migrant labor. Many
migrant harvesting crews are not coming to the Winter Garden area like
they have in the past. There is much speculation as to why this is
happening, but the most likely reason is that they have something to
hide and don't want to risk being in our area. Increased border
security, workplace raids, and the fear of raids are making the labor
shortages in South Texas worse every day. We have had an explosion of
Border Patrol agents in and around Uvalde. Apprehensions of illegal
aliens are down 44% along our stretch of the border. According to local
crew leaders, the amount of illegal aliens that are applying for jobs in
our area has dropped to almost 0%.

The biggest issue that Texas may face with "illegal" or "undocumented
workers" is Social Security no-match. Based on data Texas Employers for
Immigration Reform has compiled, there are 8.1 million employees who
would face no-match letters and potential problems. Texas is figured to
shoulder much of the problem with an estimate 780,840 employees being
targeted by no-match. Winter Garden Produce does everything in its power
to have a legal workforce. For all labor contractors we use, we require
that they submit all I-9's and copies of all documentation to verify
their I-9's. Employers just cannot be sure this is enough. For the
record, the vast majority of agricultural employers ARE playing by the
current rules. We are interviewing workers, reviewing documents that
appear legitimate on their face, filling out the Form I-9, withholding
taxes and social security, and complying with the wage laws. Yet, the
simple fact is that based on national estimates, at least 70% of the
agricultural labor force is working under fraudulent documents. In fact,
I would speculate that Texas has lived in denial about the extent of
this problem for a long time, under what might best be described as
"don't ask, don't tell." So, the "70% or more farm workers are illegal"
statistic is likely accurate in Texas.

Just as I have discussed that the IRCA legislation or "Amnesty" did
little to solve the long-term needs of Agriculture, neither will a
reformed H-2A program by itself solve the problem, for the opposite
reason. At the present time H-2A fills fewer than 60,000 jobs out of a
total of over 3,030,000 jobs in agriculture. This translates into less
than 2% of the total job opportunities. The numbers are even less in
Texas. Currently only 1500 in Texas jobs are filled by H-2A. We have a
total of 166,117 agricultural job opportunities in Texas. This is less
than 1%. There is no possible way in a short period of time that
producers can go from less than 1% of the workforce to having a most of
the it met by this or any other guest worker program. Besides this,
there are many jobs in agriculture that cannot be filled by H-2A
workers. Under H-2A, both the worker and the job must be temporary or
seasonal (10 months or less). This precludes us from filling key
positions that are year round and cannot be filled by H-2A. Many
producers, ourselves included, lack the housing needed to participate on
H-2A. It will take time to work through the capital investment and
approvals needed to acquire housing. Also, it is imperative that we as
employers have an opportunity to retain key, experienced employees that
have been employed for many years with fraudulent documents that
employers had no way of knowing the status of these employees.

The labor shortage problem in our area reached a climax in the spring of
2006 and shows signs of becoming worse, as a result of the increased
emphasis on workplace enforcement, border security, and the lack of
comprehensive immigration reform. During the spring, Winter Garden
Produce may employ as many as 400-450 workers, 200 of whom harvest (clip
onions) in the field. In May 2006, our harvesting crews were down to
80-100 laborers. Most, if not all, of the decrease in labor workforce
includes daily crossers and migrant workers that come from the Rio
Grande Valley. Because of this shortage, we were running two weeks
behind in harvest and it was affecting shelf life and arrival value of
onions at the direct cost to Winter Garden Produce of over \$75,000.
Winter Garden Produce also had to abandon 35 acres of cabbage because
some of the cabbage harvesting workforce switched to onion clipping
crews because of the shortage of workers. The sales value on that field
alone was over \$175,000. That field along with the onion harvest being
two weeks behind schedule cost our company over a quarter of a million
dollars in 2006.

This past season had every sign pointing toward a larger labor shortage
than the year before. Early in May of 2007, Winter Garden Produce was
running 4-5 days behind on our harvest schedule and then the rains came.
We completely lost an onion field that had a sales value of \$250,000.
In the same study mentioned above conducted by Texas A&M University, the
total onion industry in Texas experienced around a 21 percent decrease,
or 1051 workers, from the 2006 season. The economic impact from the
labor shortage during the 2007 spring onion season in Texas was very
substantial. Texas losses in business activity related to agricultural
support such as field operation, harvesting and packing, pesticides and
chemical manufacturing, and farm machinery and equipment were estimated
at \$15 million, while associated income losses are an additional \$7.2
million and additional job losses were estimated to be 310.

Timing is crucial. Farmers, growers, and producers need help now, not
when congress feels like they can get to it. Texas has always relied on
a legal guest worker supply from Mexico. That labor force is becoming
smaller and smaller and there is currently no measurable way to replace
it. Every year the shortage becomes worse and worse. If we continue down
this same path the agricultural industry in Texas as we know it will no
longer exist.

We have to have major immigration reform on the federal level, or we are
going to see an accelerated decline of our labor intensive agriculture
including the fruit and vegetable business. Local workers simply are not
available to do this work; it is not a matter of wages. We must have a
legal means to secure this workforce. Because of the seasonality and
perishable nature of our industry, we are at a greater risk than most
sectors of the U. S. economy. Texas Agriculture simply cannot endure a
large scale work shortage and additional loss of our labor force.
Mexican workers will harvest much of Texas produce for U.S. consumers;
it is simply a question of whether they will harvest crop in U.S. or
Mexico. According to the Texas Produce Association half of the fruits
and vegetables being shipped in Texas are already being grown across the
border. The crop which I have experienced the greatest labor shortage,
onions, has increased in Mexico by 12,304 acres since 1996. Cabbage,
spinach, broccoli and carrot acreage has also increased by over 26,000
acres during the sane time frame. During roughly the same time period
(1999-2006) shipments from Texas decreased by 77 million pounds of the
same commodities. As you can see a large potion of the Texas industry
has already shifted into Mexico and it will continue to do so until we
fix problems here on U.S. soil. Not only am I concerned about my own
business, I am worried that all domestic agriculture will have to follow
this trend of going abroad and overseas. We are already dependent on
foreign oil imports and if we become reliant on food imports, we are in
grave danger.

Clear, sensible workplace enforcement combined with a temporary guest
worker program and a realistic way to retain our existing, experienced
workers would better secure our borders since fewer people would try to
come in illegally.  It would restore law and order by giving employers
incentives and tools to reliably verify an employee's legal status and
avoid undeserved criminalization.  In addition, it would make sure we
avoid a disastrous labor shortage which would, in turn, jeopardize
skilled jobs filled by Americans, and possibly disrupt the food supply
which could lead to higher prices for American families.

A comprehensive approach, including AgJobs which is gaining momentum in
the Senate and a sensible Daily Crossing Program which Texas along with
Arizona and California are exploring, is the only way to strengthen our
border and increase homeland security. Continuing with the "Border
security only" policy with out addressing all facets of the issue will
be disastrous. A guest worker program, including a legal path for the
workers that are already here, coupled with workplace screening, will
provide an orderly, legal process for making sure employers and needed
workers are matched. This will give our border patrol agents the ability
to focus on terrorists, drug traffickers and other criminals.

J Allen Carnes

Winter Garden Produce, Inc. President

Carnes Farms, Inc. Vice-President

Texas Vegetable Association Chairman

Texas Produce Association Director

South Texas Onion Committee Director

Curriculum vitea

J Allen Carnes

**[Work History]{.underline}**

Winter Garden Produce- President 2006-Present

Winter Garden Produce- Shed and Sales Manager 2000-2005

Winter Garden Produce-Harvest and Assistant Sales Manager 1997-1999

Carnes Farms, Inc.-Vice President 1998-Present

**[Education]{.underline}**

College-University of Texas BBA 1997

**[Elected Positions]{.underline}**

Texas Vegetable Association-Current President

. We have an imbalance between our local population and our workforce
needs. The total population of people 18 years and older in Uvalde
County is only 10,094 and our civilian workforce is 11,476. We have a
junior college and some of those over 18 are in school. We have more
people in our workforce than are in the working age population. We have
to attract people from outside our county to meet our workforce needs.
Texas Produce Association-Director South Texas Onion Committee-Director