Now that the apple and peach trees have made it through April unscathed, will the recent government scrutiny of guest-worker visas present yet another obstacle for local orchards? The answer is thankfully no. Both Carlson Orchards and Westward Orchards use about a dozen workers from Jamaica each year to help with the crops, and Frank Carlson of Carlson Orchards said in an interview that the H-2A program used to bring those workers to Harvard each year remains unchanged.
The H-2A visa program allows foreigners from certain countries into the United States for seasonal agricultural work. Unlike the H-1B visa, used for skilled technical workers, or the H-2B visa, used for seasonal hotel workers, there is no cap on the number of H-2A workers allowed into the United States each fiscal year. And the H-2A program is not under scrutiny by the federal government, at least not yet. “We’re fortunate,” Carlson said.
Bushels of paperwork
But there are still a lot of hoops to jump through to get the visas. For one thing, there’s a lot of paperwork for the orchard owners, and Carlson said if anything is not filled out to the government’s satisfaction, it’s returned. As an example, Carlson said, “If we list a job for peach tree thinners, they might send the application back because they want to know what tools will be used.” Returned applications can cause a lengthy delay in the visa process, while the crops are on their own timetable.
Orchard owners must also show that the jobs they are looking to fill cannot be filled with U.S. workers. To do that, both Carlson Orchards and Westward Orchards advertise the positions as far away as New York and Pennsylvania. Carlson said the cost for advertising is $1,200 per job order, and he typically files three job orders. “No one ever responds,” he said. Stephanie Green of Westward Orchards said they received one response about five years ago from a man who grew up on a farm and was between jobs, and he did end up working for them one season.
When asked why U.S. workers don’t want the jobs, Green said that for one thing, the pay rate is low, just $12.38 an hour this year. In addition, she said, it’s a 48-hour week, including Saturdays, and it’s hard physical labor. “Working on a farm is not as glamorous as people think it might be,” she said.
