The following letter to the editor was submitted to the (Syracuse) Post-Standard by Oswego County Farm Bureau President Eric Behling:

Wanted: People willing to work very long hours, including weekends, during harvest season. Job requirements will include climbing up and down ladders, carrying heavy loads of fruit, and an ability to work outside no matter the vagaries of the weather. Position will be temporary in nature, lasting for approximately two months.

Successful applicants will be trained in appropriate hygiene, worker protection standards, food safety techniques and quality control to ensure consumers receive nonbruised “near perfect” apples.

Any takers?

We all agree that our immigration system is broken. Illegal immigrants should not get a free pass or quicker route to citizenship than others who have been waiting. Our borders need to be secure, and we must know who is in this country.

But as a fruit grower and county Farm Bureau president, the nation’s current “head in the sand” approach will mean that consumers have less food security unless and until we collectively solve the problem of seasonal harvest jobs on farms and the need for legal temporary workers.

This past season fruit rotted in the fields, vegetables went unharvested, and workers, many of whom have been traveling back and forth for years, were terrified.

The economic impact to the local community goes far beyond just the individual farm’s or worker’s loss of income. Taxes are not paid, investments are not made, and purchases from the local feed store and equipment dealer cannot be paid for.

Social impacts are even greater. As farmers lose the ability to pick their crops, the nation’s grocery stores will become even more dependent upon foreign produced food where food safety standards are dubious at best and our nation’s security lessened, not strengthened.

The same workers will be picking our crops, but they will do so back in the country from whence they came.

Farms, the backbone of rural America, will have moved south just as manufacturers have. South America can grow pretty much anything I can and at far less expense.

Congress has failed to address this growing problem and so, has in effect failed the American people. The immigration issue has grown into a political football that both sides use to their own advantage yet to no one’s benefit.

This situation has been festering for a long time (before 9/11). In the past, half measures have been implemented with no long term benefit. We as Americans need to find some logical and workable solutions before it gets much worse.

There is a very delicate balance between the farm and the dinner table. We cannot treat it lightly, nor can we fail to act. If we do, it will have grave consequences.

--Eric Behling, Oswego County Farm Bureau President