N.Y. farmers fear a shortage of skilled workers

New York Gov. David Paterson, left, poses for photos with Sen. Charles Schumer before an agricultural town hall meeting in Batavia, N.Y.,, Monday May 12, 2008. (AP Photo/David Duprey)

BATAVIA, N.Y.—New York farmers say a shift in state policy is making it harder for them to hire experienced seasonal workers through federal guest-worker contracts.

During a meeting with Gov. David Paterson on Monday, farmers said the state Labor Department is forcing less experienced domestic workers upon them by rejecting growers' applications to hire foreign workers on H-2A visas.

"There's been kind of a shift in the Department of Labor's response to growers trying to get certified for the H-2A workers, and it's been a shift from previous administrations," Oswego apple grower Eric Behling said. "Other states have applied through the H-2A program and haven't met the resistance."

The H-2A program allows employers to hire foreign workers temporarily if they show that they were not able to find U.S. workers for the jobs.

Paterson said the state's handling of applications is dictated by federal law. His labor commissioner, Patricia Smith, said the Labor Department has been accused of falling short in its efforts to recruit domestic workers.

"We are balancing right now our legal requirements imposed upon us by the federal government with your needs to get as much labor as possible," she told farmers.

Farmers said they doubt the new hires will possess the experience, skill and reliability of longtime workers from places like Jamaica and Mexico, and fear their crops and business will suffer.

"We advertise for workers who can drive tractors and work in other areas of harvesting and during the year, trimming trees and that sort of thing," said Behling, who grows about 200 acres of apples. "It's like they're pushing people onto us that are perhaps not qualified. Are they qualified to drive a tractor?"

Paterson said he would look to find a compromise in the federal farm agriculture bill. In the meantime, Smith said she will work with labor officials in Puerto Rico to enlist more qualified workers.

"No one's going to be required to take workers that are not experienced," she said.

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INDIANAPOLIS (AP) -- The number of fatal farm accidents in Indiana tripled last year following six years of decline, according to a new report.

Some 24 people died in farm-related accidents in 2007, three times the eight who died in 2006. It was the deadliest year on Indiana farms since 2000, when 27 people died.

"We celebrated last year when the 2006 numbers came in, because it was the lowest number we ever recorded," said Lisa Chaudion, executive director of the Indiana Young Farmers Association in Indianapolis. "But obviously there are some safety issues out there that people weren't paying attention to."

The most frequent causes of death were crushing and pinning by machinery and tractor accidents -- including tractors turning over or running over farmers and road collisions. Each of those accounted for three deaths.

Farmers are exposed to hazards nearly every day, from getting trampled by livestock to getting overcome by fumes from manure pits. A report from the Indiana Department of Labor said farming was the most dangerous job in the state.

Purdue University's agricultural safety and health program, which has been tracking farm fatalities across the state since 1970, released the latest report.