The fuss over farm labor
MONICA HATCHER AND ALFONSO CHARDY
Miami Herald
Sep 11, 2006
Now that Congress seems unlikely to approve comprehensive immigration reform, Florida farmers and farmworker supporters are voicing concerns about possible labor shortages.
In fact, several South Florida growers and farmworker advocates said last week that a farmworker shortage in the region's vital farm economy is probable -- if the federal government fails to implement a guest worker program and steps up an already heightened crackdown on unauthorized immigration along the border.
'Farmers are calling and asking `Will we have enough workers?' '' said Homestead-based Josefina Juárez, one of nine federally funded employees in Florida who monitor farmworker rights.
Lost in the increasingly shrill debate about immigration reform is whether failure to legalize millions of undocumented immigrants will disrupt farming -- a component of the American economy that relies heavily on undocumented immigrants. About 1 million of the nation's estimated 2.5 million farmworkers may be undocumented immigrants, studies show.
