Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
I've got Maryland Drake. She isthe head of the Colorado Fruit and Vegetable
Growers Association. Maryland, welcome tothe show. Thank you, what a
pleasure to be on with you.Mandy. Thanks well. Tell my audience
first a little bit about the ColoradoFruit and Vegetable Growers Association. What is
it? Well, the Colorado Fruitand Vegetable Growers Association is a relatively new
(00:24):
association. We were formed in twentyfourteen, ironically around some of the same
issues we're dealing with today, theagg labor issue and where we're going to
get the workers to work produce farms. And I came on board as executive
director in twenty fifteen, and sincethat time, we've grown in membership and
(00:47):
scopes of service that we provide formembers. And that's in a nutshell,
who we are. So let's getdown to brass tags when you talk about
agg labor, and I'm just togo on what I have known in my
own life because I grew up ina rural part of Florida and a lot
of my father's friends were farmers.They utilized a lot of migrant labor,
(01:08):
and back in the eighties it wasit was all very under the table,
and I think that's the best wayto say it. Well, through the
immigration battles of the eighties the earlytwo thousands, with the establishment of everify,
has it gotten any better or worseto get migrant labor to come over
and pick fruits and vegetables. It'sgotten very difficult. So going back even
(01:37):
further than what you're talking about theeighties, like my grandparents were migrant farm
workers at times, from both sidesof my family. They traveled and would
do work within Colorado, and youknow, that was a very common thing.
Then eventually we got to a placewhere all, you know, permanent
(01:57):
residents in our country did not wantto do the farm labor, and so
we did rely on a lot ofimmigrants from other countries. At this point,
it's still a challenge. There isa federal program we referred to as
the H two, a program thatbrings legally brings in qualified workers that have
(02:20):
experience working on farms, and itis expensive, it's a lot of paperwork,
but so many farms have gone tothat because that's the only way to
find workers that consistently. You know, I've heard stories antacdotally about farmers here
in Colorado that'll hire someone locally andmaybe they don't even come show up for
(02:43):
the orientation, or maybe they cometo orientation and work cafe day and they're
gone. So it is grueling work. It's also in Colorado it's very seasonal,
so you work really, really hardfor a few months and then you're
drops over. So Colorado growers havehad to bring in a lot of workers
from other countries, all Mexico,Honduras, you know countries, but also
(03:07):
ones that you may not think of, like Ukraine and Moldova and South Africa.
They are all I know right nowworkers from those countries that are working
on Colorado farms. So what makesthe I know, it's a government program,
so I realize this may sound likea dumb question, but what makes
(03:27):
that program so inefficient? And areyou able to make suggestions that could make
a process or streamline a process sopeople could participate legally and it not costs
the farmers so much to do allthis? You know, above board,
I don't know if I have specificA lot of our concerns have to do
(03:50):
with more what's happening in our state. But yes, federally it's a problem
too. For one thing. Theyhave what they call an adverse wage rate,
and in Colorado, the minimum wagethat these workers are going to get
paid is sixteen dollars and sixty threecents an hour. That does not include
any over time, and there's beena lot of criticism of how that wage
(04:16):
is determined and is it really accurate. They're trying to set a wage that
won't interfere with local workers. Essentiallyin a nutshell, there is a lot
of paperwork, there's fees. Ifyou have back the same people, the
fees are now higher. There's justa lot of rules that don't make a
(04:39):
whole lot of sense to a lotof farmers. So I guess I wasn't
prepared entirely to talk about that's afederal program and how to make it easier.
But they could definitely streamline it.They could make the fees more reasonable.
I think there's been a tendency tonot want to do that by actually
people on all sides of the aislebecause they have the feeling that that or
(05:01):
they have the wrong assumption that thatis going to keep American Americans from getting
jobs. But the reality is theydon't want these jobs. So let's talk
about the state of Colorado and whatthey're doing and why they're making it harder,
and how we could fix that problem. Sure, sure, and if
I don't if you don't mind,I'd like to back up a little bit
(05:25):
or talk about the loss of farmsthroughout the United States from twenty seventeen to
twenty twenty two, five year period. The Senses of Egg told us that
we lost almost one hundred and fortytwo thousand farms in our country, and
in Colorado the number is two thousand, eight hundred and thirty seven farms,
(05:48):
or seven percent of our farms inthat five year period. So you know,
we've got a lot of people movinginto our state. Farmers just aren't
able to in some cases find thelabor already. So that's where we are.
Then, in twenty twenty one,the Colorado General Assembly passed and our
(06:12):
governors signed a law that put overtime into farm workers, made it mandatory.
I will say it could have beenworse. Many states, or some
of the states that have adopted overtime have stopped it at forty hours.
We have a little because it wassuch a short compressed season. They fortunately
(06:34):
gave us a period of fifty wherewe could go to fifty six hours,
so that was very helpful, butthat was a huge blow to our farmers
who are already paying a minimum thisyear of sixteen sixty three per hour to
these workers. And it's just reallychallenging for farmers to make a living.
(06:58):
And that's why I relate it tothe loss of farms and Colorado. Yeah,
hey, was the leading loss ofacres of farms in the same survey.
And much of this has to dowith the loss of the ability to
find and hire these workers that areso necessary, especially in produce. You
(07:19):
know, you've got hand weed andhands in and hand harvest so much of
the produce. Well, let meask you this question because I know,
and I'm talking with Marilyn Drake.She is the executive director of the Colorado
Fruit and Vegetable Growers Association. Theminimum wage. When I have been around
farming and farm workers, a lotof the meal, a lot of the
(07:40):
stuff was they paid on piecemeal,They paid by weight, they paid by
volume. So the more you picked, the faster you picked, the more
money you made. How has thisminimum wage affected the overall wages for an
experienced farm worker? Have they goneup? Have they gone down? Is
it the same. You know,how has that changed done way up?
(08:01):
And there are farms that still dothe piece work, but that's still the
minimum. They can't make less thanthat. They can only make more than
that if they do the piece work. Mandy, Yes, okay, so
that was my first question. Hasthis increase in minimum wage made it easier
for Colorado farmers to get labor becausethey're going to make more in Colorado than
they would make in Texas or NewMexico or one of our surrounding states.
(08:24):
Is that showing to be true?Actually, the overtime has made it harder
because some of the farm workers havesaid, we're out of Colorado because we
can't work unlimit. Farmers aren't goingto pay the overtime. They just don't
have the money. They would loveto pay their workers twenty dollars an hour,
(08:46):
thirty dollars an hour, but theyjust can't afford. They won't stay
afloat if they do that. Sosome of the workers H two eight workers
have said, we don't want togo to Colorado even though the hourly rate
is good, they can make morein other states. Because I mean,
sometimes I know it sounds a littleoutrageous to some average American working an office
(09:09):
job, but during the summer,farmers and their employees may be working sixty,
seventy, even eighty hours a weekduring certain periods of time because you
can't just say, well, gosh, we'll get to that tomorrow, because
you may have a hailstorm come throughor a rain or overripe produce. You've
got to pick it when it's ready, and you've got to thin it when
(09:31):
it needs to be thinned. Andyou know, that's the reality of farming.
So it actually has kind of beenthe opposite. We even though the
higher rate you would think would attractmore people, if anything, it's pushing
people into other states that don't havethe overtime requirements. Colorado's just the I
(09:52):
believe it's the sixth state that hasadopted overtime for bag workers. Let me
ask us this has led to anykind of you know, usually when there's
a labor shortage, and we're kindof seeing this in areas where they have
jacked the fast food minimum wages upso high that fast food operators can't afford
to do it. So they're lookingat automation. And I know that farming
(10:13):
has a certain amount of automation,especially in a larger farm. But what
what what what is preventing us fromdeveloped developing technology other than cost? Okay,
we'll just say this is going tobe a costing But are there specific
things that make it difficult to toautomate some of these jobs? There is
automation going on, particularly like inthe weating category, and c FEGA has
(10:41):
for the last two years hosted ademo of these machines that do weating.
I mean they're really big, thatreally you know, laser guided AI programmed
machines are you know, we're talkinga million, a million and a half,
so, you know, significant amountof money. But there is definitely
a push to do that. Butthere's still some really delicate produce like a
(11:05):
strawberry or you know, things likethat, that it's really difficult to have
those, you know, automated,widespread automation. I think it's coming,
I really do, but in thein the meantime we're still faced with this.
And in the meantime, we're goingfrom a nation that supports more food
(11:26):
than it imports to one that importsmore food than it exports, and that
is largely in the produce industry.So you know, that's really scary to
me. That should be alarm bellsfor everyone. Hey, we're a net
importer of our food now, wellis part of that and this might be
(11:48):
a question that you are not inthe right position to answer. But how
much of that is I feel likecorn because of ethanol mandates and other things
that we're making corn, has cornbecome even larger as a crop or is
it the same or smaller than ithas been traditionally? You're right that I
don't know those numbers. I thinkwe're still producing a fair and my dad's
(12:11):
a corn not a sweet corn producer, I you know, representing the produce
industry. But I think there's stilla fair amount of corn being produced.
I couldn't speak to whether that's goneup or down. I just know about
produce in general. Well, Marilyn, what can my listeners, What do
my listeners need to know? Whatcan they do to help Colorado agg producers
(12:33):
going forward? Well, they shouldbe shook by this stat that I just
shared with you. We're now importingmore food than we're exporting. We got
to move, we got to changethat post taste, because that's a really
scary statistic. And how they dothat. I mean specifically, they can
(12:56):
support Colorado produce by going to theirgrocery stores and looking for the Colorado produce
in season. You know, we'reshort compressed season here. And the way
you find what's in season win inColorado is on the Colorado Produce dot or
website. Our website. There's afine Colorado Produce button and there's also a
(13:18):
calendar there and you can see youknow when to you don't expect strawberries in
February, greenhouse production, but that'sa really good way to familiarize yourself with
what is available when and go intothose retailers and if it's in season,
if green beans are in season,now, we should see some green beans
(13:39):
from Colorado on those grocery shelves.And if not. As the produce manager,
why not, I would put thatpressure on. Certainly, support your
farmer's markets, all that sort ofthing, and also elect legislators, whether
they're in the city or the country. The countryside tend to you know,
(14:01):
still listen to farmers that will listento agriculture and say, hey, guys,
you know you keep doing this andwe're not going to have ag and
we're especially not going to have aproduce industry in this state anymore. I
really appreciate your time, Marilyn.Good information. It's such an important part
of our economy. But also thisis what we eat, so it's incredibly
(14:24):
important that we have access to food. You know, just it's going to
sound paranoid, but you want tobe closer to your food than not,
right, You want to be closerto the people that are producing your food
than not. And I have greatinformation. Thank you for all you do,
and we'll chat again hopefully and havebetter news about the labor situation.
(14:45):
Yes, thank you so much forhaving this. Mandy
I've got Maryland Drake. She isthe head of the Colorado Fruit and Vegetable
Growers Association. Maryland, welcome tothe show. Thank you, what a
pleasure to be on with you.Mandy. Thanks well. Tell my audience
first a little bit about the ColoradoFruit and Vegetable Growers Association. What is
it? Well, the Colorado Fruitand Vegetable Growers Association is a relatively new
(00:24):
association. We were formed in twentyfourteen, ironically around some of the same
issues we're dealing with today, theagg labor issue and where we're going to
get the workers to work produce farms. And I came on board as executive
director in twenty fifteen, and sincethat time, we've grown in membership and
(00:47):
scopes of service that we provide formembers. And that's in a nutshell,
who we are. So let's getdown to brass tags when you talk about
agg labor, and I'm just togo on what I have known in my
own life because I grew up ina rural part of Florida and a lot
of my father's friends were farmers.They utilized a lot of migrant labor,
(01:08):
and back in the eighties it wasit was all very under the table,
and I think that's the best wayto say it. Well, through the
immigration battles of the eighties the earlytwo thousands, with the establishment of everify,
has it gotten any better or worseto get migrant labor to come over
and pick fruits and vegetables. It'sgotten very difficult. So going back even
(01:37):
further than what you're talking about theeighties, like my grandparents were migrant farm
workers at times, from both sidesof my family. They traveled and would
do work within Colorado, and youknow, that was a very common thing.
Then eventually we got to a placewhere all, you know, permanent
(01:57):
residents in our country did not wantto do the farm labor, and so
we did rely on a lot ofimmigrants from other countries. At this point,
it's still a challenge. There isa federal program we referred to as
the H two, a program thatbrings legally brings in qualified workers that have
(02:20):
experience working on farms, and itis expensive, it's a lot of paperwork,
but so many farms have gone tothat because that's the only way to
find workers that consistently. You know, I've heard stories antacdotally about farmers here
in Colorado that'll hire someone locally andmaybe they don't even come show up for
(02:43):
the orientation, or maybe they cometo orientation and work cafe day and they're
gone. So it is grueling work. It's also in Colorado it's very seasonal,
so you work really, really hardfor a few months and then you're
drops over. So Colorado growers havehad to bring in a lot of workers
from other countries, all Mexico,Honduras, you know countries, but also
(03:07):
ones that you may not think of, like Ukraine and Moldova and South Africa.
They are all I know right nowworkers from those countries that are working
on Colorado farms. So what makesthe I know, it's a government program,
so I realize this may sound likea dumb question, but what makes
(03:27):
that program so inefficient? And areyou able to make suggestions that could make
a process or streamline a process sopeople could participate legally and it not costs
the farmers so much to do allthis? You know, above board,
I don't know if I have specificA lot of our concerns have to do
(03:50):
with more what's happening in our state. But yes, federally it's a problem
too. For one thing. Theyhave what they call an adverse wage rate,
and in Colorado, the minimum wagethat these workers are going to get
paid is sixteen dollars and sixty threecents an hour. That does not include
any over time, and there's beena lot of criticism of how that wage
(04:16):
is determined and is it really accurate. They're trying to set a wage that
won't interfere with local workers. Essentiallyin a nutshell, there is a lot
of paperwork, there's fees. Ifyou have back the same people, the
fees are now higher. There's justa lot of rules that don't make a
(04:39):
whole lot of sense to a lotof farmers. So I guess I wasn't
prepared entirely to talk about that's afederal program and how to make it easier.
But they could definitely streamline it.They could make the fees more reasonable.
I think there's been a tendency tonot want to do that by actually
people on all sides of the aislebecause they have the feeling that that or
(05:01):
they have the wrong assumption that thatis going to keep American Americans from getting
jobs. But the reality is theydon't want these jobs. So let's talk
about the state of Colorado and whatthey're doing and why they're making it harder,
and how we could fix that problem. Sure, sure, and if
I don't if you don't mind,I'd like to back up a little bit
(05:25):
or talk about the loss of farmsthroughout the United States from twenty seventeen to
twenty twenty two, five year period. The Senses of Egg told us that
we lost almost one hundred and fortytwo thousand farms in our country, and
in Colorado the number is two thousand, eight hundred and thirty seven farms,
(05:48):
or seven percent of our farms inthat five year period. So you know,
we've got a lot of people movinginto our state. Farmers just aren't
able to in some cases find thelabor already. So that's where we are.
Then, in twenty twenty one,the Colorado General Assembly passed and our
(06:12):
governors signed a law that put overtime into farm workers, made it mandatory.
I will say it could have beenworse. Many states, or some
of the states that have adopted overtime have stopped it at forty hours.
We have a little because it wassuch a short compressed season. They fortunately
(06:34):
gave us a period of fifty wherewe could go to fifty six hours,
so that was very helpful, butthat was a huge blow to our farmers
who are already paying a minimum thisyear of sixteen sixty three per hour to
these workers. And it's just reallychallenging for farmers to make a living.
(06:58):
And that's why I relate it tothe loss of farms and Colorado. Yeah,
hey, was the leading loss ofacres of farms in the same survey.
And much of this has to dowith the loss of the ability to
find and hire these workers that areso necessary, especially in produce. You
(07:19):
know, you've got hand weed andhands in and hand harvest so much of
the produce. Well, let meask you this question because I know,
and I'm talking with Marilyn Drake.She is the executive director of the Colorado
Fruit and Vegetable Growers Association. Theminimum wage. When I have been around
farming and farm workers, a lotof the meal, a lot of the
(07:40):
stuff was they paid on piecemeal,They paid by weight, they paid by
volume. So the more you picked, the faster you picked, the more
money you made. How has thisminimum wage affected the overall wages for an
experienced farm worker? Have they goneup? Have they gone down? Is
it the same. You know,how has that changed done way up?
(08:01):
And there are farms that still dothe piece work, but that's still the
minimum. They can't make less thanthat. They can only make more than
that if they do the piece work. Mandy, Yes, okay, so
that was my first question. Hasthis increase in minimum wage made it easier
for Colorado farmers to get labor becausethey're going to make more in Colorado than
they would make in Texas or NewMexico or one of our surrounding states.
(08:24):
Is that showing to be true?Actually, the overtime has made it harder
because some of the farm workers havesaid, we're out of Colorado because we
can't work unlimit. Farmers aren't goingto pay the overtime. They just don't
have the money. They would loveto pay their workers twenty dollars an hour,
(08:46):
thirty dollars an hour, but theyjust can't afford. They won't stay
afloat if they do that. Sosome of the workers H two eight workers
have said, we don't want togo to Colorado even though the hourly rate
is good, they can make morein other states. Because I mean,
sometimes I know it sounds a littleoutrageous to some average American working an office
(09:09):
job, but during the summer,farmers and their employees may be working sixty,
seventy, even eighty hours a weekduring certain periods of time because you
can't just say, well, gosh, we'll get to that tomorrow, because
you may have a hailstorm come throughor a rain or overripe produce. You've
got to pick it when it's ready, and you've got to thin it when
(09:31):
it needs to be thinned. Andyou know, that's the reality of farming.
So it actually has kind of beenthe opposite. We even though the
higher rate you would think would attractmore people, if anything, it's pushing
people into other states that don't havethe overtime requirements. Colorado's just the I
(09:52):
believe it's the sixth state that hasadopted overtime for bag workers. Let me
ask us this has led to anykind of you know, usually when there's
a labor shortage, and we're kindof seeing this in areas where they have
jacked the fast food minimum wages upso high that fast food operators can't afford
to do it. So they're lookingat automation. And I know that farming
(10:13):
has a certain amount of automation,especially in a larger farm. But what
what what what is preventing us fromdeveloped developing technology other than cost? Okay,
we'll just say this is going tobe a costing But are there specific
things that make it difficult to toautomate some of these jobs? There is
automation going on, particularly like inthe weating category, and c FEGA has
(10:41):
for the last two years hosted ademo of these machines that do weating.
I mean they're really big, thatreally you know, laser guided AI programmed
machines are you know, we're talkinga million, a million and a half,
so, you know, significant amountof money. But there is definitely
a push to do that. Butthere's still some really delicate produce like a
(11:05):
strawberry or you know, things likethat, that it's really difficult to have
those, you know, automated,widespread automation. I think it's coming,
I really do, but in thein the meantime we're still faced with this.
And in the meantime, we're goingfrom a nation that supports more food
(11:26):
than it imports to one that importsmore food than it exports, and that
is largely in the produce industry.So you know, that's really scary to
me. That should be alarm bellsfor everyone. Hey, we're a net
importer of our food now, wellis part of that and this might be
(11:48):
a question that you are not inthe right position to answer. But how
much of that is I feel likecorn because of ethanol mandates and other things
that we're making corn, has cornbecome even larger as a crop or is
it the same or smaller than ithas been traditionally? You're right that I
don't know those numbers. I thinkwe're still producing a fair and my dad's
(12:11):
a corn not a sweet corn producer, I you know, representing the produce
industry. But I think there's stilla fair amount of corn being produced.
I couldn't speak to whether that's goneup or down. I just know about
produce in general. Well, Marilyn, what can my listeners, What do
my listeners need to know? Whatcan they do to help Colorado agg producers
(12:33):
going forward? Well, they shouldbe shook by this stat that I just
shared with you. We're now importingmore food than we're exporting. We got
to move, we got to changethat post taste, because that's a really
scary statistic. And how they dothat. I mean specifically, they can
(12:56):
support Colorado produce by going to theirgrocery stores and looking for the Colorado produce
in season. You know, we'reshort compressed season here. And the way
you find what's in season win inColorado is on the Colorado Produce dot or
website. Our website. There's afine Colorado Produce button and there's also a
(13:18):
calendar there and you can see youknow when to you don't expect strawberries in
February, greenhouse production, but that'sa really good way to familiarize yourself with
what is available when and go intothose retailers and if it's in season,
if green beans are in season,now, we should see some green beans
(13:39):
from Colorado on those grocery shelves.And if not. As the produce manager,
why not, I would put thatpressure on. Certainly, support your
farmer's markets, all that sort ofthing, and also elect legislators, whether
they're in the city or the country. The countryside tend to you know,
(14:01):
still listen to farmers that will listento agriculture and say, hey, guys,
you know you keep doing this andwe're not going to have ag and
we're especially not going to have aproduce industry in this state anymore. I
really appreciate your time, Marilyn.Good information. It's such an important part
of our economy. But also thisis what we eat, so it's incredibly
(14:24):
important that we have access to food. You know, just it's going to
sound paranoid, but you want tobe closer to your food than not,
right, You want to be closerto the people that are producing your food
than not. And I have greatinformation. Thank you for all you do,
and we'll chat again hopefully and havebetter news about the labor situation.
(14:45):
Yes, thank you so much forhaving this. Mandy
The Mandy Connell Podcast News
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