Harvesting crops during Coronavirus | Arizona lettuce farmer John Boelts | Vance Crowe Podcast

Vance Crowe [00:00:00] As the crow flies on the Bands Crow podcast, welcome back to the podcast. I'm glad you're here. So I'm gonna continue on with my Coronavirus series, where I'm interviewing people from around the world that have different perspectives on what is going on with the coronavirus, how it impacts their industry, how they're feeling about it, and kind of just the way it's changing the world around us all. I'm gonna head out to an interview with a man named John Bolts, who is a lettuce farmer from Yuma, Arizona. John is one of the most highly respected farmers in, certainly in Arizona, but maybe in all of us agriculture. He is a beloved mentor and friend, and I'm really glad that we had a chance to sit down and talk. I put this on the fast track. In fact, the whole reason that I started doing this series was because I saw John talking on Twitter about some of the challenges he saw with Coronavirus shutting down embassies and making it impossible for certain people to be able to apply to come over to the United States to work as migrant workers in the fields. So I'm gonna let John talk all about that. This is a great interview. I'm glad you're here. I hope you're staying safe. And let me know if there's somebody that you think I should have a conversation with that will give us a more robust view on how Coronavirus is shaping the world around us. John Bolts, welcome to the podcast.

Coronavirus Perspective [00:01:34] Hey, Vance. Good to see you today. Sir,

Vance Crowe [00:01:37] You are in the strangest location of any guest I've ever had on the podcast. What is behind you?

Coronavirus Perspective [00:01:43] Well behind us here today? We've got a iceberg lettuce harvest happening as we speak. They started here about an hour and a half ago, packing 24 count boxes that you would see coming in the back of restaurants or supermarkets all over the US and Canada.

Vance Crowe [00:02:01] So tell the listeners what your background is. What is it that you do? Why, why are you standing in front of a lettuce field right now? I,

Coronavirus Perspective [00:02:09] So these are my crops. We work with five different West Coast produce shippers that ship fresh produce all over the US and Canada. It's, it's a lot of work to make sure we have it all ready to harvest each day when they ask for it to be ready to harvest. That's a several month process that we work with our shipper partners on, and, and they literally do, they wanna be harvesting every day and we try to make sure that we plan 6, 9, 6, 3 months in advance. We're working on various different steps and then the last two to three months is growing the crop to produce it. So that's my day job. And then I volunteer with Arizona Farm Bureau doing advocacy work with Arizona and American Farm Bureau, and I guess that's how we've gotten to know each other. But yeah, my day job is farm and lettuce and other vegetables and other crops when we're done with vegetable crop, like fresh melons and other things. We're growing all year here in, in Arizona,

Vance Crowe [00:03:12] So we've known each other for years, but it would not have been for the pandemic of coronavirus that's going on right now. That got us talking. I saw you on Twitter talking about labor issues, and I wanted to give you a chance to explain to people all over the country, really all over the world, what is going on with labor in light of coronavirus and, and where you're at. Maybe a good place to start is where are you and how do you get your labor right now?

Coronavirus Perspective [00:03:39] So most of the folks that work with us, not exclusively, but most of the folks, the vast majority are first or second generation immigrants into the United States. Most of them come with a background in agriculture of some kind, most of 'em from Mexico, and they're tractor drivers, irrigators, and of course the harvesters, like you see, using knives in the background behind us and packaging and, and getting the lettuce ready to move to the coolers. And most of the people in the, in, in my segment of the industry are, you know, temporary guest workers, first or second generation immigrants from Mexico. And we're really blessed to have a wonderful labor supply. We're not completely unique in that across the United States. A lot of agriculture has been blessed with these temporary guest workers, or first and second generation immigrants coming into the country and doing invaluable work that we just simply couldn't put the beverages or, or food on people's table without, without them, they're essential to our businesses. It's been a long road over the last 30 years, 20 to 30 years, we've been advocating for Congress to dramatically change how we let folks come into this country, to immigrate into the country and to work in this country to change both labor and immigration laws to drastically improve our labor situation, particularly in agriculture. We haven't made hardly any progress with that.

Coronavirus Perspective [00:05:12] And so we have a fairly broken system and that's what kind of got us talking yesterday about that very topic and how coronavirus is impacting our fragile and poorly designed labor system for agriculture.

Vance Crowe [00:05:27] So tell us about that. Coronavirus starts becoming part of the news. When does it start impacting lettuce harvest for you?

Coronavirus Perspective [00:05:35] Well, as you might imagine, if you have a really bad system, then you throw uncertainty, human disease, things like that into the system, it worries you immediately. We have such a fragile system, let me describe that. Let's talk right here in my local community, we have about 50,000 people working in production agriculture, helping produce the various crops that we farm here in this, this community, which impacts the entire US and Canada with fresh vegetables, seed crops, lots of different things, forage crops, all kinds of different stuff. But a lot of the things that we grow, like you see happening behind me, they're hand harvested, they're hand tended. We don't have big harvest equipment to harvest, you know, fresh lettuce. We've been working on mechanizing, but we're a long ways from that. Consumer expectations are that the product look and and be perfect in every way, and there's really only one way you get there and that's hand selected, hand harvested for the most part. So,

Vance Crowe [00:06:39] Yeah, I mean, I don't think most people realize that, that the way you harvest this is with rows of lettuce and somebody bent over getting every single one of 'em cut and then put into a bag and then placed in there. It is really difficult work.

Coronavirus Perspective [00:06:55] Absolutely. I'm, I'm much slower and actually where I'm, and myself and the camera are this morning, we've got, you know, lettuce right here. So those folks cut that lettuce right off, right off the ground, trim the wrapper, leaves off, wrap that head up like that and put it into a, into a carton. And then the cartons are palletized and it leaves the machine that those folks are working alongside of it. The machine is just a way to transport the pallets and boxes in and out of the field. But to get this lettuce to you, it takes hand attending and hand care. So we have about 50,000 people working here in this community in agriculture. About 15 to 20,000 of those folks travel in and out of our community every winter to come in for the harvest as it commences in earnest in November. And then concludes in the first week in April or the last week in March. And it's, it's extremely labor intensive work that is done at harvest time. Cauliflower fields that are, you know, just the stones throw from here, have leaves that are growing all the way up above people's waste. They're harvest, harvesting those cauliflower heads right out of, amongst those cauliflower leaves lettuce a little bit easier. But like you say, you have to bend over, not quite as wet of conditions, but certainly laborious and intense. And we just simply couldn't do the work we do. We couldn't get the product on people's plates without those workers. So we have those folks travel on back and forth from Salinas to Yuma seasonally.

Coronavirus Perspective [00:08:29] They'll spend seven, eight months of the year in Salinas and then four to five months of the year down here in Yuma. But then we also have about 15,000 folks that cross the border every morning at San Luis Mexico.

Vance Crowe [00:08:44] In San 15,000 you said?

Coronavirus Perspective [00:08:46] Yeah, 15,000 across the border, starting about three in the morning till about five 30 in the morning. And then all those folks take a bus ride out to the field. The whole crew will load up on a bus, come to the field. This field behind me has four crews here working today. Each crew's about 20 to 30 people and they're gonna man that harvest equipment, swing knives and box and carton knives, that lettuce palletize the cartons, send it on down the line. But yeah, to get all those folks here and get 'em doing the job, there are folks that want to do these jobs. We just simply don't have a legal mechanism that really works well for industry or the employees we're stuck with an antiquated system that was designed in the mid eighties, ultimately designed not to work called the H two A program. We've been struggling to working our way through that. That's the only program we have available.

Vance Crowe [00:09:35] What do you mean it was, and we're

Coronavirus Perspective [00:09:36] Kind of lucky not all segments of ag have that.

Vance Crowe [00:09:38] What do you, what do you mean? It was designed not to work

Coronavirus Perspective [00:09:42] In 1980. One of the deals that was cut in the, in the mid 1980s, one of the deals that was cut in Congress was to design a program that would be very finite, very kind of difficult to work with. It would guarantee a lot of things that the workers don't always use, like guarantee housing and different things. And it was kind of designed by labor unions to make sure that the, the folks that were participating it weren't gonna compete with any domestic jobs. And the reason that deal was cut and the way the program was fashioned was because organized labor felt like they were giving up a lot with the amnesty that went, was passed by Congress and in the mid 1980s that allowed existing workforce to, to seek amnesty and become legal. We're at that point, again, in this country where we have millions and millions, some folks estimate nine, 10, 11 million, I would estimate the numbers probably double that if you take into account agriculture, hospitality, construction and everything. But here along the border, we have a lot of border patrol folks that work here. They're part of our community, they're our neighbors and friends. We're in the land of high enforcement here. All of our labor force is legal. And that's really the way all of agriculture across the country once they labor supply to be. But right now we're dealing with this difficult antiquated program called H two A as a stop gap and it's, it's not the best bandaid in the world, if you know what I mean, to fix a broken system.

Vance Crowe [00:11:13] And why is coronavirus making this worse? I mean, you had mentioned that it was uncertainty, but are you concerned about the border being closed or what, what do you think is gonna happen as we go forward?

Coronavirus Perspective [00:11:24] Well, there's two different issues that are of a concern to me. H two A workers don't typically cross the border every day. They're provided housing. Most of 'em live here in our community, old converted hotels, different things like that, that have, that are their housing. And employers have bought that housing up, they provide that for them. A lot of it goes empty because people will wanna live in other places or whatever. But that's kind of beside the point. The reason Coronavirus becomes an issue is not so much for the worker that we have today, that's com participating in the H two A program, but it's really for future H two A workers that we're gonna need here in a couple months. Not just in the lettuce fields of Yuma or yume Arizona or Salinas, California, but literally all over the country. Whether you have a Christmas tree farm in North Carolina, tree, tree and fruit nut type of person that a farmer that's harvesting tree and fruit, tree fruit and nut crops in Michigan or, or Apple and cherry folks in Washington. Really anything across our fruited land, if you're domestically producing a crop that's high labor intensive and you're working with the H two A program, you need those folks to come. And the way the H two A program works is you have to work with five different federal bureaucracies. And one of those is the state department and through the state department consulates in other countries, foreign countries like Mexico, they work with those other agencies, private business, private farmers and, and packers work with, work with all those different agencies.

Coronavirus Perspective [00:13:06] But that state department location, the consulates and the embassies there in Mexico, that's where that labor force comes and applies and works out the details of coming to work in our country. And those are being shuttered right now. That's a big concern for us over the long term for all of American agriculture for, for this year. And, and, and really every year it's a big problem, but particularly right now with the threat of Coronavirus State Department is shutting down facilities and we're trying to figure out how to make that work. And it's a big, big problem dance. And then of course our daily workers that aren't part of the commuter workers, as we call 'em, that come across the border daily, have a legal right to work. Some of them are citizens, some of 'em are not. They have a, but all of them have a legal status to work in this country. Those folks would come across our border daily and they've shortened the hours at different times at the port of entry that can be problematic for getting folks to work. And there has been some discussion about potentially closing the border with Mexico, whether the Mexican government or the American government chooses to do that much like we have going on right now in Canada.

Vance Crowe [00:14:15] Do you think that's an actual possibility, John?

Coronavirus Perspective [00:14:18] I I think it is. Mexico, I heard on the news today was finding their first confirmed cases of coronavirus. You know, none of us really knows how this is gonna impact our country, but I think we're all preparing for the worst and hoping for the best and hoping for the best. We've always needed a guesswork program that suited agriculture's needs. This highlights it more than ever, but, but yeah, I do think it's a possibility. I do know that there are folks like American Farm Bureau and other trade organizations working on this today to make sure that, that American farmers and, and ranchers and folks have the labor that they need to do the jobs that they need to do to, to continue maintaining adequate throughput in our, our food supply chain. But it, it is a critical thing and, and I know folks are working on it, not just in private sector, but but in government as well. And I'm hoping they find a resolution to that soon.

Vance Crowe [00:15:18] I gotta tell you, John, like seeing your tweets about the, the idea that we may not be able to get workers across the border is probably the most frightening thing that I've seen out of all of this coronavirus, because I think I'm pretty well aware if, if you don't have those workers there on the day they're there to harvest. You know, maybe you have another 24, 48 hours, but you start falling behind and, and food rots in the fields and, and we aren't filling up the grocery stores in the way that we need to. Is that, is that right?

Coronavirus Perspective [00:15:50] Absolutely. Yeah. An iceberg lettuce field, for instance, this one that we're these two that we're standing here amongst today, they have about a four day harvest window to have optimal yield and quality a couple days before and after that will work. But you get much beyond that and it just doesn't work. And we literally, you know, we're producing for the consumer that's gonna be consuming every day, going to the supermarket, going to restaurants, that sort of thing. Obviously we're not all going to restaurants today, but we hope we can get the details of that work out. So restaurants can stay in business, institutions can get back to functioning. But ultimately, regardless of where people are at, they should be eating fresh, healthy vegetables as part of their well-rounded diet. And they have a very, they're very perishable and they have a very short window where you're gonna have a, a be within the economic threshold of making work for a farmer to produce it, a shipper, a marketeer, to put it into the marketplace, and a consumer be able to afford it. So having timely harvest is essential. And I think we take for granted in our country, you know, immigrants, the role they play. I hope that people hear this message and, and maybe think, you know, consciously about their viewpoints about it. But there are many jobs in this country that get done almost exclusively by immigrants, and they're some of the hardest working salt of the earth people just like the rest of us that work in agriculture and we're thrilled to have here working with us. They do essential jobs for our food supply.

Vance Crowe [00:17:19] So John, this is kind of a tough question to even ask, but I have already heard several people since I started talking about this. With the lettuce bringing this up, they say, Hey, there are a lot of Americans that are outta work right now. They're, they're, they're hotels are being shuttered, that they're working in their restaurants. Why don't we just have them go, go do this? What is the, what, what's your perspective on just taking the workforce that's just been knocked out and putting them to work in the fields right now?

Coronavirus Perspective [00:17:49] You know, Vance, that's, that's a great point. And I imagine some folks, some folks that maybe hadn't considered a job in agriculture may very well do that. Historically, though, even through crisis times, like after nine 11 when employment opportunities contracted and folks were outta work, we didn't see that happen at all. Typically folks will hang around for quite a while in the marketplace waiting for a job that they think suits them and their lifestyle. Folks behind me are making, you know, between 12 and $25 an hour depending on how they're paid. Some are paid piece rates. So it's how quickly they and efficiently they work. And those folks make a very good living doing this. It's laborious, no doubt, but it is a good job. And the camaraderie around the people in agriculture is second to none as, as you've found out being around a lot of people in agriculture. So, you know, it's not always beautiful every day out under the sun. Some days are cold, some days are windy. But most of the people that do these jobs, they love the work that they do and they love working in agriculture and they appreciate the opportunity and we certainly couldn't do what we do without them. So while some domestic employees workers may consider making a job change to agriculture, it seems very unlikely given our history that that might might really come to fruition. So I think in the last 40, 50 years we've seen that, you know, it's typically those first and second generation immigrants or temporary guest workers that are, that are really interested in doing this work.

Coronavirus Perspective [00:19:20] Yeah,

Vance Crowe [00:19:20] People working hard to move to another, another way of life, right? They're moving, they're, they're really, yeah. So, John, how about your family and, and what's going on in your community? How, how are people reacting to coronavirus? What have you seen change in the last week that you didn't expect?

Coronavirus Perspective [00:19:37] So as an employer, I, I farm these crops ready to harvest in the field and my shipper partners bring their crews to harvest and carton ice that product and move it into the marketplace. We have about 40 to 50 employees that work with me to grow these crops ready to harvest. We've implemented some of the advice and recommendations that were passed along by CDC, some great advice about a four page little worksheet, if you will, that we, that we translated into Spanish and put out to our workers last Friday. We're trying to keep distances of six feet, we're trying to make sure that employees that worked directly for me aren't moving from one piece of equipment to another. That we keep that person in that piece of equipment. If we have to swap somebody around, we're gonna clean that piece of equipment around and try to keep distances. One of the blessings of agriculture is we do some of our best work out here amongst the sunshine and the fields and the, the green and, and other colored crops that we're growing. So as you know, I mean ag, we're all at our best out here doing this. And those times when we have to work closely, we're also implementing precautions. But as I've expressed to all of my employees, it's key that we keep those distances and that they be cognizant at home. Our biggest concern, most of my workforce is not in the highly impacted age range and most folks that work in agriculture don't have a lot of those preexisting medical conditions that may cause them issues. Although there are a few diabetics and, and folks like that, or a few folks with asthma and things that, that it might be a complication.

Coronavirus Perspective [00:21:12] So we're cognizant, cognizant of that and trying to work on that and adjust our workspace to be safe. Some of the harvest operations though, it's much more difficult. We just, you know, folks come to come to work on a crew bus and so I do have concerns about that long term and how we'll be able to modify those working conditions with these harvest crews to make sure that they can stay as safe as possible, keep food being harvested to move to consumers. So there's a lot of issues at play Vans, we're kind of, we're worried about a lot of things. We're working on things every day and I'm proven trying to react to this. Hopefully we can beat the virus as folks have been talking about and keep the curve flat and not have an impact folks. But I've been ex explicit to my employees. I'm worried about their grandparents that they have at home that they interact with daily. I'm worried about, you know, them maybe picking something up at work from a colleague and taking it home or in their trips to supermarket and those, those elderly family members are most worried about those and, and so we're, you know, we're trying to, trying to accurately inform folks so that they can make the right decisions day in, day out and here at the workplace.

Vance Crowe [00:22:22] So John, my favorite question to ask people, because it's so fascinating how people respond to it, is what do you think the world's gonna look like in two weeks?

Coronavirus Perspective [00:22:33] Two weeks? I think it'll look a lot the same it does today. Hopefully a few more of those folks that are out there reveling a little bit, get the message and you know, even if they're not thinking of themselves, start thinking of their fellow man and woman and maybe change some of their behaviors. I don't think a lot will change in two weeks. I think there have been a lot of changes already, but I think we're all thinking about two, three and four months from now, what will our, what will our world look like? Maybe the days of the salad bar aren't that common anymore. It's not so much the food that's an issue. Lots of experts in that field have said, don't worry about your food. You're not gonna get, you know, virus is not gonna be on here and then go to your dinner table and be an issue. So folks don't really need to worry about that. But it's more, you know, the tongs you might handle at a salad bar, things like that. How you get your food touching common surfaces, how that might impact people over the next several months. So that's really where my, my

Vance Crowe [00:23:32] Concerns. I would never have thought of that.

Coronavirus Perspective [00:23:34] Full adapt.

Vance Crowe [00:23:35] Yeah. So people

Coronavirus Perspective [00:23:37] Adapt.

Vance Crowe [00:23:38] John, if, if people wanted to follow you on social media here, what you're talking about, how would they do that?

Coronavirus Perspective [00:23:47] I'm mostly active on Twitter, but you can find me on Facebook. My name is John, JOHN bolts, B-O-E-L-T-S. And that's my handle on Twitter is John Bolts, just my first and last name and you know, try to stay up on current events and try to share a lot of stuff that people might be interested as it relates to agriculture, food production, labor workforce and agriculture. And anything else that, you know, impacts us as Americans and certainly here in the southwest.

Vance Crowe [00:24:15] Is there anything people can do to help you with the, the visa challenges and the concerns you have?

Coronavirus Perspective [00:24:21] You know, I think it's just being cognizant that, that maybe people's perception of what, what agriculture needs for a workforce may not be spot on. Listen to those of us that are in the trenches. We've kind of been through the history of it for decades. We want to continue to put healthy scrunches food on people's plates day in, day out. We need the workers to do that. So yeah, check out my Twitter feed. There's a lot of info there. Reach out to me directly with any questions. I'm normally pretty Johnny on the spot about answering questions. Heck, B, you and I just talked about setting this up yesterday. So you know, just try to keep up with folks and certainly my pleasure to get a chat with you and your listeners today, Vance.

Vance Crowe [00:25:01] Thank you so much, John. Keep your workers safe and your family safe and we'll, we'll check back in with you. Thank you so much for taking the time to do this.

Coronavirus Perspective [00:25:09] You too Vance. Keep the podcast going, we appreciate it.

Vance Crowe [00:25:11] I will. All right. John Volts everybody. Thank you.