In the News
| A reprint of an article from the | ||||
| The Jackson Citizen Patriot, April 8 2000 | ||||
| Farmers use Web to look for migrant help | ||||
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HOLLAND (AP) - Farmers struggling to find migrant workers to help with their crops are turning to the Internet. Last month, growers began posting jobs on the Internet at www.michaglabor.org. There are people that need work, but we have to find each other," said Carol Bowerman, co-owner of Bowerman Blueberries in Ottawa County's Park Township. "It's getting severe." Bowerman's farm needs 40 to 50 workers. The Internet is the latest tool used by farmers who say |
they have no alternative to mi-grant labor to plant and pick their crops. "We could not operate without them," Beverlee DeJonge, a blueberry grower and Allegan County commissioner, told The Holland Sentinel in a story Friday. "The labor supply is not available here." Craig Anderson, manager of the regulatory compliance program for the Michigan Farm Bureau in Lansing, said. that with Internet access available in most public libraries the farmers' Web site should be able to reach migrant | workers anywhere. Sponsored by the Michigan Farm Bureau, the Web site profiles growers, types of crops, living conditions and wages for potential migrant labor. It's becoming increasingly difficult to recruit migrant farm labor as more year-round work in fields such as landscaping, nurseries, hospitality, and restaurants throughout the United States, said Rick Olivarez, monitor advocate with the Michigan Department of Career Development in Lansing. "Other industries have found that migrant workers are some of | the best workers in the country," Olivarez said. "A lot of the grow-ers are finding they have to be more competitive with some of these industries." Many migrant workers are tired of moving their families and want a permanent home so they can get a more stable education for their children, said Elvira Ochoa, whose parents migrated annually from Texas until she was 5 years old. "They realize that it's not the kind of life they want for their kids," said Ochoa, whose father |
eventually began his own blueberry farm in West Olive. An estimated 40,000 laborers migrate annually to Michigan, with 25,000 filling 800 licensed labor camps in the state. Ottawa and Allegan counties have the largest number of labor camps in the state, with more than 50, Anderson said. Bowerman said a few years ago, she and her husband, Randy, used to drive to Texas to meet and recruit migrant laborers. When they failed to show up the next growing season, they stopped the annual trek. |