Can My Flower Farm Survive Without Immigrant Labor?

Hindustan Times

3 days ago

I've followed the news of farm-worker deportations with great interest. We hire two seasonal workers from Mexico, both legal, at our small flower-growing business. The Trump administration has assured farmers that the labor shortage can be addressed by employing Medicaid recipients, who are now subject to work requirements and will line up at farm gates across the country.
I hope I'll be able to staff up without resorting to foreign labor. Foreign workers cost our business more than domestic ones do, owing to the time it takes filling out paperwork and the cost of transportation and housing. But I'm skeptical that we'll see a wave of Americans willing to take on the work.
We've been hiring since 1986. Our first employee worked for us for 20 years, and she was always the best at whatever job she tackled. All employees were local until 2023, when we could no longer find local help for evening and weekend hours.
We've hired a lot of people—roughly 200 over the past four decades. Some were a net benefit; others weren't. We hired a pickup-truck driver to deliver our flowers, but she lasted a day. A mishap involving the over-the-cab box and a drive-thru overhang ended her truck-driving career. Still, she worked with us for a couple of decades watering plants.
One group we hired would sneak out behind the office at lunch to smoke. In our naiveté, we didn't realize what they were smoking until the next spring, when we noticed a crop of cannabis growing among the pine trees. One young man left work one evening with some of our tools, never to return.
I've had greenhouse plastic covering burn to the ground because of a carelessly disposed cigarette. One former employee felt the need to explore the attic over our office. She fell through the ceiling and landed on my desk. I once hired someone to water flowers. She lasted 30 minutes. We learned of her career change by noticing a flood in the road below the greenhouse. She left without turning the water off.
One year we hired two sisters whose brother faced trial for murder across the state line in Nebraska. Every day at lunch they reported on the trial to their co-workers. (He was found guilty, and is still, as far as I know, on death row. The crime was portrayed in the 1999 movie 'Boys Don't Cry.')
All of this is to say that domestic workers are a gamble. Some of that is my fault. My safety training, supervision and management skills could use some work. If I were better at my job, the people I hired would be better at theirs. But this isn't a problem of hiring the wrong person. We hire everybody who applies, with only one exception—someone who had recently been released from prison for assault.
Is there a reserve army of unemployed workers in our country willing to work for me to qualify for Medicaid? We're about to find out.
Our dedicated and talented local employees have all worked here for several years, and they are a wonderful help to our business. But there are too few of them to get the work done, and none are willing or able to put in seven days a week like our family does.
Until now, we've filled our labor shortage with foreign workers, though not without challenges. Still, they show up every Sunday to keep the plants alive and load Monday morning's deliveries. Our business can't survive without them.
Mr. Hurst is a Missouri farmer and greenhouse grower.