Rural Issue
Farmers feel labor pinch
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- Bryan Bixby is a third-generation farmer that grows everything from apricots to soybeans.
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- Bixby Farms also operates a wholesale produce business that supplies farmers markets and grocery stores.
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- Apples are handpicked, crates are filled, and then they’re sent for sorting and cleaning before going to market.
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- Niagara grapes are ripe and ready for Welches.
A Michigan fruit farmer says this year he was most challenged by finding labor.
Bryan Bixby is a third-generation farmer in Berrien Springs, in Southwest Michigan. He tells Brownfield he grows a little bit of everything including: strawberries, tart cherries, apricots, peaches, juice grapes, apples, cabbage, sweet corn and soybeans.
He says if farmers can’t find labor to plant, harvest and take care of crops, they won’t be in business. “We’ll be forced to buy our produce or vegetables from other areas of the country or other countries.”
Bixby tells Brownfield most of his employees are regulars every season or he’ll share employees with other farmers harvesting different crops. He’s tried to provide incentives like free housing, competitive wages and fuel, but he says it’s not enough. Bixby says he may have to turn to programs that source labor from outside the U.S. “I really haven’t explored any other avenues like the H-2A program, but that may be on my radar for next year or the year after.”
He says labor hasn’t always been an issue, but higher paying jobs in construction and landscaping are tapping into his workforce. “Everybody worked very hard and we got by, but I think next year is going to have to be a different story.” He says, “We’re either going to have to hire more people or do less of what we do.”
Apples are in the last days of harvest on the farm and Bixby says the weather has been favorable. “It’s really been pleasant harvesting apples compared to what we had starting in the spring with all the wet weather, cold weather that really put a damper on the year as for as strawberries, apricots were pretty tough for us—just a lot of issues.”
Michigan is second in the nation for agricultural diversity, producing more than 300 commodities, and ranks in the top ten production states in almost 80 different crops including apples.
AUDIO: Interview with Bryan Bixby
Tags: ag labor, apples, cabbage, cherries, Commodities, Grains/Oilseeds, grapes, Harvest, Michigan, Produce, Soybeans, strawberries, sweet corn
Why is it when we have millions of Americans out of work, that farmers never seem to be able to hire anyone to work for them?