National Editor Tom Karst Is the "farm labor crisis" phony? CNBC had recent coverage called "More data on the phony farm labor crisis."
Why was the farm labor crisis phony? The author surmises that because profits are up for farmers in many states, the concern about farm labor is overblown.
As one reader comment to that article states, that is a clumsy, if tempting, conclusion to make. You cannot exclusively equate profits or lack thereof with farm labor. But you get the sense that the consumer media is tiring of the repeated warning signals about farm labor shortages. The author, John Carney, writes:
Every summer, newspapers around the country roll out stories of a labor shortage on farms. The fruit is going to rot in the orchards, crops will go unpicked, agricultural communities will be devastated unless something is done, the stories predict.
His point, I guess, is that there hasn't been enough carnage of "rotting crops" to justify all the alarm over the farm labor shortage.
Ironically, CNBC also had coverage that called the California labor availability for farmers the worst in years.
So I ask readers to rate the farm labor supply. What it is like in 2012?
A question for the Fresh Produce Industry Discussion Group is this:
Labor available for picking fruits and vegetables this year has been ...
Extremely tight
Moderately tight
About equal to demand
Slight surplus
Much more than demand
How do you rate the farm labor crisis - phony or all too real?
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