Chile: Teacher analyzed the availability of labor for the 2022-2023 harvest season
An academic from the agricultural sector projected that the availability of labor for seasonal work during the 2022-2023 fruit harvest could continue to be low due to the health situation.
However, the teacher said that the work contributed by immigrants - as in other seasons - could become relevant for the province since it would allow the harvest of products on time and with the necessary quality to export the fruit to its destination markets.
Jaime Ugarte, professor at the Santo Tomás University in the area of fruit growing, explained that "for the orchard itself, the release of restrictions allows a certain normality and obviously also allows a reduction in expenses, because the expenses that are they were doing in terms of capacity restrictions forced costs to increase.”
“Farmers benefit from the end of the most direct restrictions and allows flexibility on this issue, especially in more complicated areas, such as transportation, which could not be fully used, it was necessary to organize arrival times and other measures”, observed the academic.
Ugarte appreciated these changes, although he also expressed doubts about the possibility that having fewer restrictions would allow for greater availability of labor.
CORONAVIRUS WOULD DISCOURAGE AGRICULTURAL WORK
The also fruit advisor indicated that "despite the fact that we had bonuses and fund withdrawals, which ended a long time ago, the availability of labor was greatly reduced, by students and housewives, who were afraid of go out to work and I don't know if that fear will end.
“The migrant labor has come to help us, for the last two seasons, to harvest the orchards. In smaller districts it is likely that they will help, but in the case of Los Angeles I see it as difficult”, Ugarte projected.
The professor from the Universidad Santo Tomás said that “the seasonal workers who work to maintain orchards, moorings, pruning and fumigation are seasonal workers who work a lot in the fields, forming true permanent crews.” “Due to the regularity of these tasks, in general there have been no restrictions from that point of view”, Jaime Ugarte valued.
The academic from the Santo Tomás University projected that “the situation is going to improve and it is logical that it improves, because transportation in general in the fields is rather private, contracted. There will be greater availability of mobilization, but being able to fill it with personnel for the orchards is not certain."
“Especially the women who worked in blueberry orchards and who always did, raise doubts in me, because although the coronavirus has decreased, it continues to exist,” analyzed the professor from the fruit area.
Ugarte indicated that "as a commune or province we are leading the cases today, so I do not see that the Coronavirus has disappeared and that people are going to work." The situation described by the professor is repeated “especially in the segment of older people, who were normally homeowners. That today they go to the fields I see it more difficult”.
MIGRANT LABOR
“There are even people who have apprehensions with the coronavirus. There is already talk that this season we will have mainly migrant personnel, especially from Bolivia”, Jaime Ugarte projected. The professor of the fruit growing area explained that “it seems that once again, like last season, we are going to have a greater harvest by this type of personnel. What I have heard is that these workers are good in terms of efficiency.”
“They are people trained in the different fruits, whose interest is to receive a good pay, which they achieve by making kilos of harvested fruit. The season will be characterized by that aspect, rather than by an increase in the availability of local labor,” said the professor at the Santo Tomás University.
Regarding the future relevance of migrant labor in the province of Biobío, Ugarte advanced that "the work of this type of migrant is going to be more efficient in terms of the number of kilos that they will be able to harvest, because the work benefits these workers in kilos harvested per day”. "An improvement in harvest efficiency is expected, each farmer must see which market to target, because the fruit quality requirements of each market are different," explained the professor of fruit growing. "It is different to send fruit to each market, because the demands are different. With the migrants we will have more fruit and hopefully better quality. In the United States, the fruit arrived with considerable deterioration, for different reasons, mainly logistics, but it could also be the quality of the harvest of those who carry out these tasks," concluded the academic from the Santo Tomás University.
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