Ag labor shortages defy easy fixes

Washington state vegetable farmers Burr and Rosella Mosby shifted in their seats and furrowed their brows as they listened to a panel discuss immigration issues during a session at the American Farm Bureau Federation’s annual convention.  USDA economist Tom Hertz was providing some troubling numbers for the Mosbys and other farmers who depend on workers to plant, prune, pick and pack their crops. “We hand-harvest everything,” Burr Mosby said.  Mexican immigration to the U.S. has been declining since 2007, Hertz said, and the number of Mexican-born people in the U.S., legally or illegally, has dropped from 13 million to an estimated 11.7 million in that time. The crop workers remaining are getting older: 14 percent were 55 or older in 2013-14, compared to 11 percent in 2007-09.  That’s a concern because the ability to do manual labor declines with age, he said. Also, the percentage of workers who are settled in one spot, not migrating from job to job, has increased to 84 percent from 74 percent during that time frame.