LAKE COUNTY — Unlike the now notorious pear harvest of summer 2006, the pear harvest this year seems to have enough workers to pick the fruit, according to local growers and labor contractors. But it was still the usual scramble to recruit them at the start of harvest.
Most of the growers are now wrapping up picking this year”s crop in a harvest that relies on the traditional method of hand-pickers marching through rows of pear trees with 12-foot ladders, picking the hard, green fruit that is then put into bins or bags to be sent off to a packing company.
Last year, much of the abundant crop lay rotting in fields because of the scarcity of pickers. Only half of the 900 workers needed in the county could be found, and tons of pairs lay to rot. Soon national newspapers parachuted in to the small community they had never heard of before, and the debacle was featured in the New York Times, brought to the attention of Congress, and used as an example in the lobby for a retrofitted AgJobs bill ? part of a comprehensive immigration reform measure that fizzled this summer that would have allowed more guest workers across the border.
Local farmer Toni Scully told the Record-Bee in an interview earlier this summer that the pear harvest this year was an abundant, early crop. Last year”s crop was equally hearty, but a large portion of Scully”s harvest lay to rot because of the lack of pickers. Earlier this summer, Scully said their business was straining to recruit enough workers.
“The worker population is a migrant population, we can”t just go down to the EDD (Employment Development Department) and find someone who knows how to pick pears in a manner that is effective?it takes skills to climb a ladder?they”re seasonal and migratory, that”s the reason why Americans haven”t raised their kids to be farm workers,” said Scully.
Stringent border enforcement in recent years has kept many illegal workers from making the traditional migration up to Washington to pick apples, then down through Oregon and California for pears, almonds, winegrapes and other crops” harvests, according to farmers and labor contractors.
The pear industry is a tricky one to make a profit from, farmers agree, with steep competition coming from Chile and other countries, where pears can be produced cheaply.
Amy Hansmith, a longtime Lake County resident and former pear farmer who now works for organic pear grower Yoxagoi Orchards in Kelseyville, used to grow pears between 1990 and 1996.
“I got out of pears, it was not lucrative enough,” said Hansmith, who says last year Yoxagoi had a difficult time getting enough people to pick. “We relied a lot on the picking platform last year. We still used it this year but one of our long-time contractors was able to bring people up. We”re not going to give up on conventional pickers just yet.”
The “picking platform” is a self-propelled mechanical picker that lifts workers up different tiers as pickers grab the fruit and toss it onto a conveyer belt. It”s a method that has been utilized for the past couple of years in the county. The platform requires less labor and time and is a valuable resource in times when pickers are few, farmers say.
Hansmith said Yoxagoi owner Lars Crail “was hedging his bets” this year by using both methods?hand pickers and the picking platform.
Local pear farmer David Weiss, owner of Bella Vista Farming Co., manages orchards in Kelseyville and Lakeport and says the harvest this year is high quality and bountiful, but it”s too soon to say what the profit returns will be.
“The quality was very good; it”s a very clean fruit with nice sizing. Size is very critical in the evaluation of pears no matter what outlet it is for?fresh market or cannery. Despite the good quality of the pears, it”s unclear at this point whether the grower returns will be very good because sales will go on well into November,” said Weiss.
Weiss said that last summer, many of the farmers throughout Lake County had a large amount of fruit left unpicked on the trees. The reason this year was not a repeat of last year”s disaster is due to two factors, he says.
“I think this year the labor contractors were perhaps more organized and aggressive?everyone was attuned to it going into the harvest and worked together to keep workers available and satisfied,” said Weiss, who said his pay rates were the same as last year. “I know some people paid higher wages last year to attract more pickers but we kept our rates even.”
“The other thing that contributed to the difference this year was the timing of the harvest. This year it was slightly earlier, last year it was slightly later than normal. Most of the pickers we use in Lake County come from the Sacramento River District. Last year the harvest was delayed and they didn”t finish picking in the Delta in time to start work here,” said Weiss.
This year, according to Weiss, the timing was normal. “They finished right on time in the Delta and were able to start picking here so we never got behind. We pushed really aggressively to finish before the fruit got ripe,” said Weiss, who said they had wrapped up picking in his orchards on Monday.
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