[Market-farming] Wages

Andy Fellenz fellenz at fltg.net
Tue Mar 24 22:22:51 EDT 2009


You need to start fishing in a different part of the wage pool.  If you 
pay junk, that's what you'll get.  In a previous career I was involved 
in hiring and managing hourly employees for factory work and always 
found that by going a few dollars an hour above the local prevailing 
wage I would gain access to a much higher quality employee.   If you 
can't afford to pay a higher wage, you need to look at what you can do 
to make your farm a preferred work place. 

For me, it has helped that I am flexible on work hours and don't get 
real uptight when some of my guys have a manana attitude where showing 
up at 8:10 is as close as they can get to 8:00 - they just stay a little 
longer at the end of the day and still get the work done.  I don't pay 
my guys a whole lot, but I do offer health insurance and a flexible work 
schedule to accomodate their college classes or just their desire to 
work less than 40 hours a week.  For me, I've found it better to hire 4 
people at 30 hours a week than 3 at 40 hours a week.  Getting good 40 
hour a week people would be more expensive than the 30 hour a week 
people and I would also lose some of the flexibility I have with my 
part-timers.  As the farm grows, I'll need to revisit this, learn 
spanish and figure out a way to pay enough to get some good full timers. 

Regarding WWOOFERS, I can't imagine finding a pole long enough that I 
would use to touch this type of help.  I like my employees to come to 
work in the morning and go home in the evening, I definitely don't want 
to live with them.  They need their time and I need mine. 

Andy

Allan Balliett wrote:
> We are really getting the shaft on our H2-A farm workers this season. 
> Until they arrive, I'm hiring local people to help on the farm. It's 
> a nightmare, really. The average person doesn't last more than 3 days 
> (and by 'day,' I actually mean 4-6 hours) and doesn't arrive on time 
> on any of those days.
>
> I'm looking now to try to hire some High School students. Local 
> farmers have told me that I should pay High School students about $5 
> an hour. That seems very light to me, but, then again, $8.50 to $10 
> we offer adult workers seems very high for what we are getting in 
> return. (In fact, what we get in return is VERY depressing when I 
> look at what it costs us. Worse, of course, is how much of my own 
> time is consumed in just the acting hiring and re-hiring. Oh, here's 
> a new time waster: this is the first year we've had 'shopping 
> WWOOFERS," wwoofers who want to come to the farm for a tour to see if 
> they want to come back later and wwoof. I've yet to understand how 
> come people think I've got so much time. I should have gone into 
> soybeans, I think.)
>
> Anyway, sorry for the tirade.
>
> Thanks
>
> -Allan in WV
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