- Author: Jeannette E. Warnert
President-elect Donald Trump promised to crackdown on illegal immigration during his campaign. Caitlin Dewey reported in the Washington Post that such a move would result in increased fruit and vegetable prices for Americans.
The Post sought information from the UC Agricultural Issues Center (AIC), a statewide program that is part of UC Agriculture and Natural Resources. UC Cooperative Extension was credited as a source for a chart that accompanied the article that noted the crops most vulnerable to labor-cost change....
- Author: Jeannette E. Warnert
No matter what happens with immigration reform, the United States will likely suffer a shortage of farm labor in coming decades, reported the Washington Post. The story was based on a study titled "The End of Farm Labor Abundance" by Edward Taylor, professor in the Department of Agriculture and Resource Economics at UC Davis, UC graduate student Diane Charlton and Antonio Yúnez-Naude, professor in the Center for Economic Studies at El Colegio de Mexico in...
- Author: Jeannette E. Warnert
Pending federal legislation that would require employers to check worker eligibility using an system called E-Verify is divisive and unrealistic, writes attorney Dirk Stemermen in his Monterey Herald column "On the Job."
"Nothing turns conservative 'growers' into immigrant-rights advocates quicker than obligatory E-Verify use," Stemermen said.
E-Verify, which checks information from an employee's I-9 Employment Eligibility Verification Form against government records to determine U.S. employment eligibility, is already in use in Arizona,...
/span>- Author: Jeannette E. Warnert
Immigration reform and stricter enforcement of current immigration laws could lead to increased mechanization in California farming and more food imports, reported the Sacramento Bee.
The story was based on research by agricultural economists at UC Davis and the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The report, titled “Labor Trajectories in California’s Produce Industry,” found that changes in the way immigrant labor is regulated in the U.S. would increase the cost of labor for California's $20 billion fresh fruit, nut and vegetable industry.
“California’s produce industry depends on a constant influx of new,...