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Gone are the days when farmers labored from sunrise to sunset every day while fully bearing the costs of bad weather and the competition of lower-priced products. Now farming consists mostly of large, wealthy, land-owning families hiding behind the protection of incorporation to escape the burden of estate taxes and the risk of liability while still benefiting from taxpayer-subsidized cheap labor and government handouts.
The agricultural contribution to society
According to Comprehensive Annual Financial Reports (CAFRs), every year the agricultural community in Frederick County employs about 400 people. Based on statistics touted by the Rural Areas Subcommittee (RAS) and the Preservation of Rural Life in Frederick County (PRL), unlike residential development which they claim costs the County money, agriculture has a positive fiscal impact. And for these very reasons (along with the sacred cows of rural view sheds and tranquility), the County must do everything possible to preserve agriculture.
Agriculturalists and other special interest groups shamelessly use the power of government to give themselves advantages over other citizens and businesses: land use tax deferrals, bonus TDR densities, protection from eminent domain and nuisance ordinances, etc. They have also pushed to make things more difficult for the average citizen who wants to build a home by tightening well and septic system regulations and increasing “preservation tract” requirements on new housing developments.
The belief is that agriculture should be encouraged because it is positive for the County, but residential development should be discouraged because it is a burden on the County. But this simply is not true.
What about the kids?
For years, local farmers, particularly those belonging to the Frederick County Fruit Growers Association, have applied to the Virginia Employment Commission for migrant workers to pick fruit and other crops during the harvest season. They made requests for hundreds of workers who are not residents of the state, let alone the County, and likely not even residents of the country. The farmers do not pay unemployment insurance, and migrant workers are often directed to local public health clinics for any non-emergency medical care. Some of these workers bring their families–over 1,000 migrant children came to Virginia last year.
According to the minutes from a Winchester Public School (WPS) Board Buildings & Grounds Committee meeting (Sept 10, 2010):
Interest was expressed in the number of migrant students WPS enrolls. Dr. Leonard reported numbers of migrant students are difficult to identify because of general increases in transiency, but will investigate and report back.
And no, the Winchester Watchdog did not find where he reported back.
Based on WPS Fast Facts sheets for 2010, it costs the City of Winchester over $12,000 a year to educate a child. Frederick County’s cost-per-pupil is about $10,000. Based on these numbers, even if only five children of migrant workers are enrolled in a city school for the fall semester, Winchester will spend $30,000 a year to educate them. Have the local agricultural companies paid any proffers to offset these costs? Are they even paying real estate taxes on their properties to help with the education costs of migrant workers’ children or the social services provided to migrant workers such as health care? We already know that many of them take advantage of the “land use value” tax deferral program.
Frederick County Fruit Growers Association, Inc.
Members of the FCFGA include (but are probably not limited to) Timber Ridge Fruit Farm (Cordell Watt), Fruit Hill Orchard (Diane Kearns and C. Robert Solenberger), Russell Orchards (James Douglas), Marker-Miller Orchard (John Marker), and William Whitacre.
When it comes to payroll, some of these companies do not withhold taxes, especially when it comes to H2A workers. Looks like those companies plan to just “1099” the migrant workers, and we all know how that typically turns out. Some of the companies also deduct meals expenses from the workers’ paychecks.
Workers are housed at what Scott Kensinger, captain of the Winchester Fire and Rescue, called in a memo “the Labor camp at 801 Fairmont Ave.” It is a compound of nineteen or so cinder block buildings surrounded by eight-feet-high, barbed-wire-topped chain link fencing. The floors are concrete, and a small room can sleep as many as ten on metal bunks with thin, yellow foam mattresses. Bathrooms and eating areas are in separate buildings.
Last year Kevin Sieff reported in the Washington Post about the Labor camp at 801 Fairmont Ave. In his November 6, 2010 article “For migrant students, a cycle of dwindling opportunities” he described the place as “Virginia’s largest migrant camp, a rundown agglomeration of one-story cinder block buildings constructed to house German POWs during World War II.”
He interviewed some of the workers and their children. And then he described an incident that should alarm Winchester residents:
On a recent Saturday afternoon at the camp, Ellifina [a 13-year-old daughter of a migrant worker] was sitting with 13-year-old Iris Juarez when the trucks and vans began to arrive. Workers piled out of the vans: old men with hard bodies, fresh from some of the country’s largest apple fields. Out of the trucks, drunk men, on their day off from the fields, led women toward the camp’s sparse rooms.
“Prostitutes,” Iris said. “Again.” She whispered, so that her younger siblings – 10, 8 and 3 – couldn’t hear.
Wonder who pays for the STD treatments…
Last year the Winchester Star also reported on the migrant labor camp, but didn’t look too closely at the camp’s conditions. Instead, the focus was on the weather’s effect on the apple harvest as well as new employment regulations’ effect on the FCFGA’s ability to hire foreign workers. According to Federal law, farmers must hire domestic laborers before giving the jobs to H2A workers (foreigners granted temporary agricultural visas). Camp manager Cindy Burke complained about the process and the reduced number of migrant and domestic workers. Joel Danoy reported in his September 7, 2010 article “Slim pickings for workers”:
A growing number of domestic workers has also made the employment process more complicated this year. […]
“We’re seeing more domestic workers this year,” Burke said. “It’s hard because you have these migrant workers, but then you have to replace them with domestic workers. It just makes for a lot of confusion.”
Yes, that is so confusing. You have to hire people in America before you request workers from Jamaica or Mexico.
More Costs
Aside from the taxpayer-subsidization of migrant worker health care and the education of their children, America’s taxpayers also subsidize the farmers’ produce. According to the Environmental Working Group, during years 2001 – 2003 the Apple Market Loss Assistance Program dished out $3,159,407 to Frederick County farmers. Between 1995 and 2009, Frederick County farmers received over $1.8M in disaster payments, over $1.8M in corn subsidies, $424,183 in dairy program subsidies, and $292,812 in wheat subsidies.
Some of the top recipients for apple subsidies included: Timber Ridge Fruit Farm (Cordell Watt), Woodbine Farm (James Douglas), Fruit Hill Orchard (Diane Kearns and C. Robert Solenberger), Marker-Miller Orchards (John Marker), and Russell Orchards (James Douglas).
Conclusion
Yesterday’s essay showed that the Development Impact Model used by the County is flawed. The local government uses the DIM to give the false impression that new single-family homes are costly burdens on the County whereas agriculture provides a fiscal benefit, and therefore land-use controls must be put in place to curb residential growth patterns.
If we take into consideration these facts:
*much of the agricultural property in the County is part of the tax deferral program
*local farmers do not employ local residents but rely on out-of-state and even out-of-country workers
*migrant workers depend on local social services including public education
*taxpayers around the country, including those in Frederick County, subsidize the farmers’ products
then it is pretty obvious that the agricultural community is not contributing significantly to provide local jobs or real estate tax revenue, but it is contributing significantly to local education and social services costs while receiving tax dollars directly through USDA subsidies.
The Winchester Watchdog 