Scully – whose family runs Scully Packing Co., one of the county's remaining pear packing operations – was in Washington Wednesday for the official introduction of the AgJOBS legislation, which seeks to create a guest worker program for farm laborers.
The message she wants people to hear, she said Friday, is that legislators have heard agriculture's concerns and are taking measures to address the farm labor issue, as well as immigration reform.
“I think this is encouraging to growers and workers alike,” said Scully, who called Washington's reception of the message she and other agriculture industry members shared “fabulous.”
Last summer, during the pear harvest in Lake County, Scully was quoted in publications across the nation as she explained the area's crisis in finding laborers to help conduct the harvest.
Of the estimated 900 skilled workers needed in the orchards, Scully said only about 400 came to the county. The pear sheds also struggled to find the estimated 600 people needed for processing.
“We totally exhausted our labor force this year,” she said.
Scully said she agrees with county agriculture commissioner Steve Hajik's estimate that 25 percent of the county's 2006 pear crop was lost due to lack of labor.
It was only a week ago Friday that Scully received word that the legislation was being introduced, and that Sen. Dianne Feinstein had invited her to Washington, D.C. as part of a delegation of California's agriculture community. What's more, Scully was asked to speak at the Wednesday press conference announcing the legislation.
There wasn't much time to prepare, said Scully, but, in a sense, she was ready. “I had the speech written in my heart for a long time,” she said.
At the press conference, Scully joined California Senators Feinstein and Barbara Boxer, along with Larry Craig (R-Idaho), Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.), Mel Martinez (R-Fla.) and George Voinovich (R-Ohio). Also in attendance, she said, was Congressman Mike Thompson.
Scully is no stranger to activism on the part of agriculture. In recent years she has lobbied for extension of state legislation to allow teenagers to work extended hours in pear sheds during the harvest.
Still, being in the national spotlight was a little nerve-wracking. Thompson, she said, “stood right beside me and held my shaking arm.”
The press conference was well-attended and the bill's introduced well-received, she said. Afterward, she spent the day meeting with other members of Congress, as well as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's staff.
Thompson, who she said went “over the top” to help promote the bill's announcement, committed to being a bill co-sponsor, and also hosted a reception where the California delegation was able to meet with some legislators with whom they hadn't yet connected.
“He just represents us so graciously and so effectively,” she said.
She also praised Feinstein, who she said has been working on guest worker and immigration reform since 1998.
A national solution is needed for labor issues, Scully said. “We haven't had a legal way to get workers for 43 years since the bracero program ended.”
The labor force, she noted, has increasingly become tighter over the last few years. With the National Guard sent to the borders this past year, many workers didn't come to help the harvest, she said. That, combined with 2006's bumper pear crop, resulted in a catastrophe at the local level.
Lake County's problems were magnified because of the large crop, as compared with other stone fruit crops around the state, which Scully said were estimated to be 15-20 percent below average.
“We've said we're the canary in the coal mine,” Scully said. “Our situation just happens to highlight what is really going to happen everywhere if we don't get a usable guest worker program here.”
Without such a program, she said, family farms can't remain viable. “We'll find ourselves in the situation of having our food supply outsource.”
However, Scully said she's encouraged at the reception so far for AgJOBS, which is being reintroduced in a wider, comprehensive immigration bill.
Scully said she felt legislators really heard her story about Lake County's problems, and that they were addressing the issue in a bipartisan manner. That prevailing atmosphere, she said, could work in agriculture's favor.
“It's time for Congress to show the American people they can work for the good of the country on both sides of the aisle and get something done,” she said.
E-mail Elizabeth Larson at
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