Citing the lack of a guest worker program, S. Arizona farmers let acres sit fallow

MARK KIMBLE

Take a look at the prices you're paying for fresh fruits and vegetables these days.
If only there was a way to grow more. More supply should mean lower prices for consumers. And if farmers could grow more, they'd make more money, too.
It could easily happen - here in southern Arizona.
There are untold acres of farmland on which food used to grow. Now it sits empty.
Farmers would like to plant there. But they're not sure there would be anyone to harvest it.
This is where the national issue of immigration reform and the lack of a guest worker program hits home.
Because there is not a reliable supply of farmworkers, southern Arizona farmers are cutting back what they plant. Lower supply means higher demand - and higher prices.
Alan Robbs who grows onions and other crops outside Willcox, knows this firsthand. Last year, he left about 40 of his 200 acres unplanted. That's a lot of onions that weren't grown and sold - but Robbs was afraid they would rot in the field.
Across the state, Paul Muthart, general manager of a large produce farm near Yuma, has been forced to do the same thing. Some of the land he oversees has not been planted for a number of reasons - including the inability to get workers for the harvest.
They are not alone. Many other longtime farmers in southern Arizona could be turning out more lettuce, onions, pumpkins, broccoli, chiles and other types of food. Instead, fertile farmland is empty.
"We purposely cut back growing some of our vegetable crop because I didn't think we'd be able to get it harvested," Robbs said.
Robbs Farm was started by Alan's father 53 years ago and now produces pistachios, pecans and pumpkins in addition to onions.
After leaving 40 acres - one-fifth of his farm - unplanted last year, Robbs left about 25 acres fallow this year. He didn't find more workers; he found a way to use the same workers to do more.
Robbs planted a different kind of onion that will be harvested at a different time of year on some of his land. That way the same workers can stay longer and harvest both.
In Yuma, Muthart manages the 60-year-old, 8,000-acre Pasquinelli Produce Co. in a part of the state that produces up to 90 percent of the lettuce, broccoli, celery, cauliflower and other vegetables eaten by Americans during some winter months.
Because there is not a guest worker program allowing people from Mexico to come into the United States for the harvest, then return home, workers must cross the border - legally - daily if they want to work.
So Pasquinelli has stopped planting on land it owns more than an hour's travel from the border because workers don't have time to travel that far.
Muthart said he is 20 percent to 25 percent short of the workers he needs for full produce production.
He has twice been to Washington, D.C., to argue for immigration reform or at least a guest worker program, but to no avail.
He and other farmers in the area now are deciding how much land they'll have to leave vacant next winter. "It's on everybody's mind," he said.
Robbs and Muthart both stressed one point: The farmworkers from Mexico don't want to live in the United States. They want a legal and easy way to go back and forth.
"These people like living in Mexico and to go home every night," Muthart said.
"They have their families down in Mexico," Robbs said. "They like it down there."
State Sen. Marsha Arzberger, who lives in Willcox, has been trying to get a state guest worker bill through the Legislature. But it has been stalled.
Even if it were to pass and be signed by the governor, the federal government would have to give its permission.
Some crops simply aren't grown here anymore. A lot of fresh chiles used to be grown in the Willcox area, but most of that has stopped. When they are ready, chiles must be picked immediately. The work force was too iffy for that.
So instead of bringing the workers to the crop, the crop has been moved to the workers. Chile growing has increased in Mexico, with much of the crop shipped into the United States.
That, Robbs said, presents a new concern as American farmers grow less of the food eaten by Americans.
"We've lost control over our food supply," he said. "Bioterrorism is a bigger danger than illegal immigration."