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Picker Shortage, Weather Hurt Berry Harvests in Washington, Oregon

Posted on: Friday, 1 July 2005, 00:00 CDT

Jun. 30--Southwest Washington growers gave mixed reviews to their 10-day-old raspberry harvest Tuesday, but they expected their strawberry pickers to finish fields this week that produced a far larger yield and better quality berries than those found in Oregon.

A picker shortage cut deeply into the strawberry harvest in both states, however.

Up to one-third of the strawberries grown in Clark and Cowlitz counties are being lost this year due to a shortage of field workers. The reason for the shortage, growers said, is competition from other employers, such as hotels, packing plants and landscape companies.

Part of the loss of labor also is due to a crackdown by immigration officials on Mexican and Central American workers attempting to enter the United States illegally, said Tom Peerbolt, a berry consultant in Oregon and Washington.

"We had a beautiful crop of strawberries this year," said Peerbolt, "but if those workers don't show up for that month when you need them, it all can be down the drain. With strawberries, unlike raspberries, there is no mechanical picking option. You have to have the pickers."

He said Oregon had a smaller strawberry crop than Washington, both because Oregon has older, lower-producing fields and because the minimum wage is higher in Washington, drawing many workers to Clark and Cowlitz counties.

Jerry Dobbins, who grew 150 acres of strawberries at 1405 Goerig Road, west of Woodland, said he needed 350 strawberry pickers but was able to hire only 200 at the peak of harvest, a number that has dwindled to 80 this week. "We left one-third of the crop in the field because there were no pickers," he said.

At his farm east of Vancouver, however, grower Joe Beaudoin said he had plenty of pickers on his five acres of strawberries. He said he's had abundant labor because he's been paying pickers 45 cents a pound, about twice the average wage. A good picker can make $9 to $12 an hour, he said.

"We had the best crop of strawberries we've ever had," he said. "We're getting fabulous production and fabulous berries."

On one 1.25-acre field, Beaudoin said, pickers went in five times and took out $27,000 worth of strawberries, about 15,000 pounds, double a typical good yield. "I've never got so much production in my life," he said.

His raspberries look good, too, Beaudoin said. "We picked gorgeous raspberries this morning," he said Tuesday. He's raising five acres of raspberries at Joe's Place Farm, 701 N.E. 112th Ave.

But Dobbins said this is shaping up as "a very short year" for raspberries on his 80 acres due to disease, mold and rot.

"Most of it is because of the adverse weather," said Dobbins. "Raspberries are really a very temperamental fruit, and they don't like hot or cold or rain. They are just kind of fussy. Sometimes I wonder why I grow them."

He said he expects his raspberry yield to drop to about half what it was last year, or about 4,000 pounds an acre. He expects the price for his top-quality individually quick-frozen berries to be about like last year: 90 cents a pound to the grower.

Generally, Peerbolt said, the Washington-Oregon raspberry harvest has been sluggish getting started due to cool, wet weather.

"It's been a little faster in Oregon due to lighter soils and a little better weather," he said. But across the region, raspberries have had more mold, rust and diseases such as root rot than usual due to the weather, he said. And rainy weather also makes berries stick to the canes, so they're harder and slower to pick.

Vancouver grower George Hoffman said his crop looks good. This week he has pickers working on 17 acres of raspberries at Whipple Creek Park, at the end of Northwest 21st Avenue south of 179th Street. He grew 70 acres of raspberries this year on several fields.

He said he'll sell them to Oregon Fruit, Rainsweet or Townsend Farms in Oregon, as either top-price individually quick-frozen berries or for purees.

He said he, too, was unable to hire as many pickers as he'd like on his 32 acres of strawberries.

"We're a little scant on help right now," he said. "So I guess we'll just let the strawberries go now, and move on with the raspberries."

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Copyright (c) 2005, The Columbian, Vancouver, Wash.

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Source: The Columbian

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