Dianne Feinstein: “we have an opportunity today with the border fence bill and with the concurrence of Members of this body to help an…”

“we have an opportunity today with the border fence bill and with the concurrence of Members of this body to help an industry that right now is in deep trouble, and that industry is American agriculture. The reason it is in deep trouble is because it does not have the workforce to harvest the crops. This is true whether it is Florida, the State of Washington, Iowa, Idaho, California, Arizona, or any other agricultural State. The reason for the shortage of workers is because agriculture dominantly depends on what is an undocumented or illegal workforce. The reason that is the case is because it has been found over the years that American workers simply will not do this work. Therefore, agriculture, the huge industry that we have in America, has come to depend on an undocumented workforce. Just to give one example--and I wish I had a big chart--but this is the pear crop in Lake County, a farm owned by Toni Scully, and these mounds are rotting pears on the field because they cannot be harvested in time. California is the largest agricultural State in the Nation. It is a $34 billion industry. It has 76,500 farms. California produces one-half of all of the Nation's fruits, vegetables, and nuts from only 3 percent of the Nation's farmland. If these products cannot be harvested--and it is late in the harvest season today--the price of fresh produce all over this Nation is going to rise. We have an opportunity to do something about it.…”