Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, March 28, 1990                   TAG: 9003280307
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: B3   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

VIRGINIA'S FARMS STUNTED BY LACK OF HARVEST LABOR

Because of the labor shortage, vegetable and fruit growers can't keep up with the growing demand for locally grown produce, which a grocery store produce manager said is tastier and cheaper than imported produce.

"We like to buy local produce, when it's available," Jim Sink of Harris-Teeter Super Markets in Roanoke said.

Bill Mapp, a marketing expert with Virginia's Agriculture Department, said, "We're not a major vegetable producing state now, and I don't foresee any increase on a major scale, in large part because of the limitations on labor."

Some tobacco farmers are coming to the realization that "I've either got to get out or get even bigger," said Joel Plath, an Extension Service agricultural economist at Virginia State University.

Many farmers in the 1980s found they had to increase acreage to make a profit because prices were either dropping or leveling off while inflation was increasing the cost of running a farm, Plath said.

The number of farms in Virginia decreased 14 percent in Virginia from 1982 through 1987 while the number of farms hiring contract labor increased 82 percent, according to a Virginia Tech study.

Plath said that trend is continuing into this decade.

"Three or four years ago even, farmers handled fewer acres and you could get away with using the family," Plath said. "Today, outside help is much more important."

"I'm hearing more complaints from farmers than ever before," Plath said. "A lot of people just don't go for that kind of work anymore."

With Virginia's low unemployment rate, local workers are generally unwilling to do the demanding and low-paying jobs of harvesting crops by hand.

The vast majority of the contract labor is done by migrant workers.

But Plath said the use of migrant labor has been disorganized in Virginia, in part because the use of foreign laborers, most of whom come from Mexico, is relatively new.

In addition, some farmers are unable to afford new housing requirements for migrant workers and others intimidated by an additional burden of paperwork rules, agriculture officials said.

"The labor shortage is especially hurting small and middle-sized farmers," Plath said. "They are too small to really be able to afford housing but large enough to need outside labor."

Even if they arrange for migrant workers to come to their farms for the seasonal jobs, some farmers are running into community opposition to foreigners living nearby.