Does $1 nectarine taste differently than a $4 nectarine? We might soon find out – PB/TK
Undocumented farm workers put food system at risk –
Harold McClarty of HMC Farms in Fresno County, in California’s Central Valley, hires up to 1,500 farm laborers each year to tend and pick his orchards full of peaches, nectarines, plums and apricots and knows many of those workers have family members here illegally.
“We had incredible labor issues last year and we anticipate it will only get worse and worse,” he said, adding that all of the people he hires are documented.
Talk of stepped-up immigration enforcement has people concerned, he said, but talking about the politics of farm labor are “just not my thing,” noting real immigration reform hasn’t happened under Democratic or Republican presidents since Ronald Reagan. But unless something is done soon, he said, “you’re going to be living in a world without peaches maybe — at least California peaches.”
Albert Garnica, vice president of operations at Taylor Farms in Salinas, Calif., is another grower who expects the harvest will be hit with a labor shortage.
“Right now, with the new administration, people are afraid to come out to go to work, and then you have the older generations of workers retiring, so you’ve got both hitting at the same time,” Garnica said. More than half his workers come in on H-2A visas for temporary farm workers, he said.
Continue to msn.com article: http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/undocumented-farm-workers-put-food-system-at-risk/ar-BBzmejW?li=BBnbcA1
