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FRESNO, Calif. -- The nectarine came off the branch with a rustle of leaves and a snap of the stem. The flesh was soft and light, with a tangy aftertaste that was only slightly sour.

It was a few days from being perfectly ripe -- and that, said Central Valley labor contractor Fred Garza, was a problem. It might be have been too ripe to make the market in time.

"The harvest started getting away from us. We should have 25 men here, but we only have six," Garza said while standing in a nectarine orchard last month.

"I've lost two jobs this season because I couldn't get people -- any people," said Garza, who generally employs about 2,500 men. This summer, he has only 1,500 workers. "And I'm one of the largest labor suppliers around here. If I'm having trouble, everybody's having trouble."

California's farm labor contractors and growers said they struggle to find enough workers for the summer harvests because tougher border enforcement and competition from the booming construction industry and other sectors are shrinking agriculture's primary work force: undocumented Mexican immigrants.

According to the U.S. Department of Labor, 53 percent of the nation's agricultural work force is unsanctioned foreign laborers. California growers say that the number could be as high as 90 percent in the Central Valley and that they cannot survive without a steady supply of workers.

Farm labor activists who oppose the hiring of illegal workers say farmers' dependence on foreign labor stems from their refusal to pay workers higher wages and benefits. They cite unemployment rates exceeding 20 percent in rural towns such as Huron and Mendota, suggesting that the problem isn't so much the supply of workers but their willingness to work under the current wages and conditions.

"We have very limited information about what would happen if you raised farmworker wages to $10 an hour in California," says Ron Strochlic, interim executive director of the California Institute for Rural Studies in Davis. "Certainly, there would be some folks who would not be willing to do farm work, no matter what. But worker surveys have also showed that more people would be attracted at a suitable level of pay."

Growers dismiss this argument. "Most Americans think agricultural work is beneath them," said David Jackson, owner of Family Tree Farms, a 4,000-acre fruit orchard in Reedley. Jackson, whose work force is down about 5 percent this year, said he can't pay workers any more than he does.

"I use labor contractors who are probably paying their men the minimum wage. The contractor charges me more because they have to pay increased workers' compensation and other benefits," he said. "So workers are getting paid $6.75, but $9.50 is actually coming out of my pocket. I'm paying $4,000 an acre for labor. Eighty percent of my expenses is labor."

One major factor in growers' recruitment woes is stepped-up enforcement at the border.

The San Diego office of the Border Patrol reported that agents have apprehended 103,458 people trying to cross illegally from Mexico into California in the past year, 15 percent fewer than in the previous year. Border agents stationed at El Centro said their apprehension rate was down by one-third.

Border Patrol spokesman Sean Isham said electronic sensors, increased staffing and better intelligence are deterring would-be border crossers.

"We're just not seeing as many of them," he said.

Migrant workers also report more difficulty getting across the border -- including having to pay more to human smugglers, known as coyotes.

"About 100 people in my group got caught the first time we tried. They held us all day and then let us go," Gilberto Guerrero said. "I got in the next day. The coyotes are charging a lot more now, and here we're not getting enough to send to our families."

The farmers' hiring difficulties are in large part pushing Washington to place the thorny issue of immigration policy reform at the center of the national agenda. The Bush administration has signaled its desire to find common ground on an issue that threatens to split the Republican Party and alienate Latino voters during upcoming congressional elections.

While immigration reformers are pushing for stricter border controls, farming interests are lobbying for a new guest worker program that would be less cumbersome and costly than the current system.

Construction workers in demand

Apart from tougher immigration controls, some say the state's booming construction industry is also siphoning off potential workers. Agustin Cardenas, a Dinuba-based farm labor contractor, said his business -- usually a 300-man operation -- is down by one-third.

Cardenas said he lost his best foreman, an illegal Mexican immigrant, to a construction job a few months ago.

"He told me, 'I'm not working in the fields anymore. I'm going to build houses,' " Cardenas recalled.

Jorge Resendiz, 23, made the switch from agriculture to construction eight months ago, after working in the fruit fields for seven years. Resendiz, a native of Mexico's Guerrero state, now lays tile at job sites around Fresno. "We're better paid in construction. We don't have to work in the heat. We have shade. We have water. And even if I have a half day's work, I'll get paid for the full day," Resendiz said.

As Resendiz spoke, his children played in the front yard of the duplex he rents with his two cousins and their wives. Parked next to the house was a brand-new truck.

Michael Prandini, president of the Building Industry Association of the San Joaquin Valley, estimated that in 2004 more than 7,000 new housing permits were filed in Fresno County, population 850,000.

Construction workers can start at $10 an hour, while many farm laborers are paid the minimum hourly wage of $6.75.

"I'm sure a lot of my guys worked the fields before they came to work for me," said Sean Clines, a Fresno-based framing subcontractor.

Red tape and immigration enforcement also complicate matters for labor-strapped farmers. Harry Singh & Sons, an Oceanside-based tomato grower, is one of the few farms in California enrolled in the federal government's existing guest worker program, which growers say is ill-suited to the agriculture industry. The program requires growers to advertise for U.S. workers before hiring foreign workers, to house their workers and to provide them with transportation to and from their seasonal job.

Luawanna Hallstrom, manager for the farm, said the only reason it was able to join the program without going bankrupt was because managers built farmworker dormitories in the 1980s. It was a multimillion-dollar investment, she said, that the farm would be unable to make now.

Hallstrom said the farm still struggles to find enough workers each season. Because of the requirement that farmers look for U.S. workers before recruiting abroad, Harry Singh & Sons spent $20,000 on job announcements this year. "I could count the number of responses we received on one hand," Hallstrom said.

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