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Migrants Critical To Berry Industry

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By GEORGE H. NEWMAN, The Tampa Tribune

Published: January 12, 2008

PLANT CITY - Plant City is the nation's winter strawberry capital, and local farmers depend on immigrant workers to bring in the crop, a growers group official said.

Shawn Crocker, executive director of the Florida Strawberry Growers Association, shared details about the industry Jan. 3 with business, government and community leaders.

"Ninety percent of the Florida strawberry crop is grown within 30 miles of Plant City," Crocker told the Downtown Luncheon Club.

Barring problems with weather or market forces, growers expect a $300 million crop in 2007-08, he said.

Much of his talk was on the need for migrant farmworkers.

"Regardless of the ups and downs in the agricultural market, the fact remains the Florida farmers depend on immigrant labor to get the product out of the field," Crocker said. "In spite of some media prejudice that might influence popular opinion, local crops, and many of the crops harvested across the nation, could not be brought to the market without migrant farmworkers."

Crocker compared the labor needs in the Florida citrus industry, a $2 billion market, to the smaller local strawberry industry.

Citrus farmers need one field hand per 18 acres to care for and harvest a crop, Crocker said. Strawberry farmers need closer to two employees per acre, he said. About 16,000 workers are needed to plant and harvest the area's 8,320 acres of strawberry fields, he said.

In Florida, immigration is a vital component to the agricultural network, Crocker said.

"It is part of the American dream that brought most of our families to North America in the first place," Crocker said. "My own family, an immigrant family, came to Florida four generations ago and settled in the cattle and citrus industry."

State Rep. Rich Glorioso, who was at the luncheon club meeting, said the federal government years ago had a better handle on immigration than it has today.

"We continue to work toward a solution of these problems at the state and national level," he said.

Crocker said agriculture needs every employee available.

"The overriding problem is that if the agriculture industry breaks, then our entire economy falls apart. We have to have workers in the field. Until someone steps up and finds another solution we are stuck with what we have," he said.

Reporter George H. Newman can be reached at (813) 865-4451 gnewman@tampatrib.com.

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