SECTION: CAPITOL HILL HEARING TESTIMONY

LENGTH: 4240 words

HEADLINE: TESTIMONY May 01, 2000 DAVID C. WEISS CALIFORNIA PEAR GROWERS HOUSE AGRICULTURE FARM POLICY

BODY:
May l, 2000 TESTIMONY OF DAVID C. WEISS ON BEHALF OF CALIFORNIA PEAR GROWERS BEFORE THE US HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES COMMITTEE ON AGRICULTURE Introduction Good morning Mr. Chairman and members of the Committee. My name is David Weiss and I reside and farm in Lake County, California, in the 1st Congressional District where, I am proud to say, we are very well-represented by Congressman Mike Thompson. As a producer, I manage an agricultural operation comprised of 320 acres of Bartlett pears, 55 acres of winegrapes, and a commercial pear packing operation. Also, I am a partner in an additional 93 acres of pears and 108 acres of winegrapes. I appear today as a grower on behalf of the California Pear Growers Association specifically, and on behalf of the California pear industry in general. For your information, California Pear Growers is a bargaining cooperative whose main purpose is to negotiate commercial cannery prices for Bartlett pears grown in California. While there are many issues of concern to the California pear industry that deserve to be heard by policymakers, I have chosen to elaborate on the following four points for your consideration today. They are: - Maintaining an adequate and affordable supply of farm labor - Leveling the playing field with regard to foreign trade - Revamping the federal crop insurance program for pears and winegrapes - Continued support of IPM research and implementation for pears and apples Farm Labor The crops I grow are among the most labor intensive of any in modem agriculture. Planting, pruning, training, and harvesting are all done with manual labor in pears. Unfortunately, most of this type of work does not appeal to the majority of Americans, regardless of the national unemployment rate. Growers must therefore look to Mexico for the workers we need to complete these tasks. Suffice it to say that were it not for our Mexican neighbors, pears and many other tree fruits would not be viable crops in California. For the most part, the workforce from Mexico has proven itself to be very reliable and efficient for our operations. We tend to get the most motivated, hard- working individuals, who are grateful for the opportunities provided by California farmers. Many are married men with family in Mexico to whom they send the bulk of their net pay from working in the fields. They willingly pay their respective share of taxes and social security contributions through regular payroll tax withholdings. Contrary to the spirit and tone of recent ballot initiatives in California, these people do not become wards of the state or otherwise dependent on "entitlements" and other social programs. Rather, my experience is that the vast majority of Mexican farm laborers come to California, work very hard for several months, and return to Mexico for the remainder of the year. I am troubled, however, by the declining trend in available labor from Mexico. The general sense among pear and grape growers in our part of the state is that there simply are not enough workers available during our most labor intensive season -- harvest. To be sure, we take great pains to insure that the workers we hire are legally documented. However, in light of the current tight labor market, it is conceivable that we may someday be confronted with the dilemma of knowingly hiring undocumented workers or not harvest our crops. Unfortunately, the current system encourages a black market in smuggling of people and in counterfeiting of documents. I have heard stories about illegal immigrants paying $1,000 to $2,000 to be smuggled across the border, often at great physical risk of injury or even death from the journey they must take. The irony of this system is that the only thing these people want to do is work in the fields and packing sheds, receive a fair wage, and return to Mexico for the winter season when the work is done. We need a simple system that: -provides farmers with a stable, legal workforce -provides farmworkers with a means by which they can be protected under US labor laws, earn the right to legal status, and avoid the risks of undocumented status -maintains immigration control Therefore, we support the efforts of the National Council of Ag Employers in their efforts to reform the so-called "H-2A" guest worker legislation to make it more responsive, affordable, and fair to both the industry and the workers, but free of unreasonably burdensome regulations and stifling reporting requirements. With regard to wages paid to farm workers, I can assure you that each and every worker we have in our operation is paid more than the minimum wage. However, an increase in the federal minimum wage rate, while it may make for political popularity, will impact agriculture more than most other industries. Although I would prefer to pay higher wages to our workers (with or without an increase in the minimum wage), this would make us even less competitive vis-A-vis foreign producers who benefit from drastically lower labor costs, less restrictive (and often non- existent) pesticide laws, and unfair price supports and protective tariff restrictions. This leads to my next point: Leveling the Playing field Fair Trade, not Free Trade It is common knowledge that the world is becoming a smaller place by the day. As technological advances continually improve our ability to communicate, to teach and learn, to keep abreast of and evaluate dynamic circumstances the world over, we find that we are increasingly functioning on a global stage with international sources of both supply and demand. Global competition is becoming a way of life for us all, and it offers most sectors enormous opportunities. But for agriculture in general, and pear growers specifically, it is difficult to foresee a viable -- let alone profitable -- future under this new world economy- The past decade has seen the US economy grow at unprecedented rates. While this growth and prosperity have been more dramatic in some sectors than in others, it has generally been a decade of boom times in virtually all industries except one: agriculture. But how can this be? After all, without a doubt, American farmers are the world's most efficient producers of food and fiber. In fact, throughout the latter half of the twentieth century, American farmers, led by the land grant universities, have not only developed technologies and strategies to increase the quantity and quality of our own products, but also we have unselfishly transferred these technologies to foreign countries in the interest of both helping them to better feed their own people and, frequently, as a means of enhancing US national security interests -- especially when natural resources such as oil can be secured in exchange. Consequently, we now see countries that once imported more than they exported becoming net exporters of foodstuffs. This is true, for example, in the case of China in both rice and apples, both of which commodities have had dramatic effects on our markets for these crops. In the context of competing in global markets, US farm policy must take into account the notion set forth very eloquently by Steven Blank in his recently published book, The End of Agriculture in the American Portfolio', which concludes (among other things) that in agricultural economics, prices are global but costs are local. Simply, our cost structures are much higher than those of our foreign competitors because of local economics, regulations and politics. It is widely recognized that US farmers are held to much higher standards than our foreign competitors in areas such as crop protection alternatives (including pesticides), worker protection standards, food safety issues, and worker wage rates. However, our markets and, hence, the prices we receive for our products, are driven by global factors that usually do not reward us for the added costs we incur in meeting these standards. In this way, I foresee a great and unfortunate irony on the horizon: the world's most efficient producers of the world's safest supply of food cannot afford to compete in a global market that finds itself with food surpluses in one comer of the world and, simultaneously, famine in another. (Incidentally, I do not believe the end is near for American agriculture because, in the final analysis, a safe, reliable food supply is in the best interest of our national security.) As a grower, I do not advocate lowering our standards to those of the competition; nor do I believe we should attempt the impossible by requiring our competitors to implement all the regulations with which we are confronted; nor do I hope for government handouts and price supports to make ends meet "down on the farm." Rather, I believe that our policies should strive for fair trade, not free trade. If the so-called playing field were a level one, American farmers would thrive and successfully (and profitably) feed Americans as well as people in other countries. Crop Insurance Reform I am very frustrated by the federal crop insurance program as it pertains to pears and grapes, especially pears. This frustration arose from personal experience I gained while willfully participating in the program from 1994 through 1998. During that period, the operations I manage purchased crop insurance under one or more of the various "buy-up' programs, and our premiums averaged between $20,000 and $25,000 per year. We elected to purchase the higher level of coverage because of the very high costs (and consequent high risks) of pear production, and because we believed in and supported the government's stated objective of stopping the disaster payment approach to propping up the farm sector in favor of subsidized insurance premiums for farmers under a help-those-who-choose-to-help-themselves philosophy. In fact, we were told that federal assistance in tough times would no longer be available to farmers who failed to purchase crop insurance. As you will recall, 1998 brought us the weather phenomenon known as "El Niflo' which resulted in heavier-than-normal-rainfall and other difficult conditions during the spring and early summer of that year. Not only did our yields suffer, but the quality of the crop was severely impacted as well. Also, we were required to make more than twice the applications of fungicide and antibiotic sprays in order to save the crop and prevent long-term damage to the trees. These circumstances manifested themselves into the poorest quality, highest cultural cost, below-average yield pear crop in over 20 years, all of which together caused our worst financial year ever. To add insult to injury, in early 1999 1 attended a meeting hosted by the local Farm Service Agency office to learn about possible federal assistance for pear growers. The news was very disappointing for me: while our yields had been significantly below average, they were not sufficiently low to qualify us for any benefits under the crop insurance policies for which we had paid so dearly. Moreover, despite the previously-noted tough talk about abandoning the disaster payments system, the US Congress had approved a multi-billion dollar program to bail out the farm sector. Worse still, disaster payments would be paid with parity to anyone qualifying, without regard to whether or not the qualifying farmer bought crop insurance! As you might imagine, we have not purchased crop insurance for pears since. The point of this anecdote is that, from my perspective, the crop insurance program needs to be completely revamped. It must provide for the special needs of specialty crops (like pears and grapes), which needs are very different from those of corn, wheat, soybeans, and cotton. For example, cultural and harvest costs for pears are typically $3,500 per acre annually and in excess of $3,000 per acre for winegrapes. These figures are higher than the cost of ag land in most of the US. In other words, it costs us a lot more to "roll the dice" each year than it does for most other crops, and the crop insurance program needs to reflect this fact in order to be a useful risk management tool for pear growers. Continued Support of IPM Research and Implementation for Pears and Apples The pear industry in California has been a widely recognized leader in developing alternative pest control programs. Specifically, Integrated Pest Management (IPM) has been a priority for our industry for more than 25 years. Since 1990, pear growers have funded more than $2.5 million in research, $1.8 million (72%) of which has been directed specifically to IPM research and implementation of reduced risk practiceS2. Significantly, the pear industry began focusing its resources on developing "soft" technologies for its pest management needs long before the Food Quality Protection Act (FQPA) mandated such reforms. 2California Pear Advisory Board, 2000. Regardless of the crop, the single most important "critical success factor" of any IPM program is the ability to draw on a broad array of pest management tools. Such tools include: -natural enemies and predators -weather monitoring in conjunction with insect population biology and plant pathology models -critical field assessments/monitoring of insect life cycles, fungal spore releases, and bacterial counts -mating disruption of insect pests -chemical controls Pure reliance on any particular technology (hard or soft) eventually leads to tolerance and ultimately resistance by the target pest, even in the face of increased application rates. However, an integrated approach provides for managing the pest from different points of vulnerability, thereby allowing growers to reduce the overall use of toxins and rely on them when the softer approaches weaken. It is absolutely essential that all tools be kept available, however, or we jeopardize the long-term effectiveness of the IPM programs. In this regard, on behalf of the pear and apple industries in California, Oregon and Washington, I urge you to support continued funding of Section 406 of the Agricultural Research, Extension, and Education Reform Act of 1998 (7 USC 7626) for 2000 and beyond as we strive to finalize, then implement, our "Transition Strategy for the Western US Apple and Pear Production Region." Also, we request your support of the "Regulatory Fairness and Openness Act of 1999" (HR 1592), which seeks to require the implementation and administration of the FQPA by relying on science and scientific methods rather than assumptions and emotions. In closing, I would like you to understand that I am very proud of what I do for a living. In the context of over-hyped dot-coms and instant billionaires being regularly made on Wall Street and in Silicon Valley, I take comfort in the fact that my business is real, not virtual; and that the products I grow are essential to human life, not fanciful trends of the internetters. I ask you not for handouts, nor for any other means of artificially propping up me and my fellow pear growers. Rather, I hope you will consider the issues I have raised and support them in our behalf. Thank you for your time and consideration.

LOAD-DATE: May 12, 2000, Friday