By Mary Sanchez, Kansas City Star columnist

In spring, whenever storm clouds gather heavy with hail capable of ripping fragile crops to shreds, my Kansas-born mother always offers the same reflection:

“I’m sure glad I’m not a farmer anymore, depending on the weather, which is so undependable.”

In late summer, as the rains become scarce and harvests are endangered by horticultural thirst, there she is again: “I’m sure glad I’m not a farmer anymore, depending on the weather, which is so undependable.”

I’ll add my own refrain on behalf of the less than 2 percent of the U.S. workforce still involved in agriculture:

“I’m sure glad I’m not a farmer trying to hire immigrant agricultural help legally, depending on the whims of Congress, which is so undependable.”

Half a million U.S. farmers are in just that situation. They have more than 3 million agricultural jobs to fill every year, much of it seasonal labor. Many find few options other than hiring illegal immigrants.

That’s why it’s critical that Congress passes the Agricultural Job Opportunities, Benefits and Security Act, introduced May 14. The bill presents at least a partial solution to our immigration problem, because it seeks to legalize a group of longstanding seasonal laborers, as long as they meet certain conditions, and also temporarily and legally match new immigrant workers to unmet labor needs.

Such a bill was introduced in the last session of Congress but got nowhere, thanks largely to the anti-immigrant furor created by activists who don’t seem to have thought too deeply about why undocumented workers are here to begin with. These people seem to believe that U.S.-born workers are ready, willing and eager to fill the millions of seasonal agricultural jobs available every year.

Common sense, and maybe even their own family background, should tell people otherwise. The nation, like my family, is simply not set up as it used to be. We’re not living on the farm anymore. Far more of us live in cities than in rural areas.

Estimates are that at least 75 percent of agricultural workers are hired illegally, largely from Mexico and elsewhere in Latin America. And that percentage has increased dramatically in recent years, a consequence of increased illegal immigration and also population shifts of U.S.-born people moving to cities.

The illegal status is the obvious problem. Humane labor conditions and fair wages for farm workers, whether U.S.-born or immigrant, are too easily shirked without federal oversight. Nor can we just continue to ignore our broken immigration policy.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement has signaled it will not continue the infamous raids it staged during the Bush administration, but why should that reassure farmers? The issue of legality needs to be resolved. Let’s be clear, recession or no, Americans are not going to head in droves back to field labor. Nor should they be expected to. Seasonal means temporary. After the harvest, the work goes away.

And perhaps because so few of us are employed doing it, it’s easy to forget how important agriculture is to our economy. For a nation obsessed with “organic,” few of us know much any more about the tedious tending that many of our favorite vegetables and fruits require.

Oh, sure, there are growing legions of dirt diggers among us. But Michelle Obama in rubber boots turning over some soil for a photo opportunity is not farming. Tilling a bit of the backyard for a row or two of produce is not going to feed the nation.

The vast majority of America has long ago shifted away from small farm work by virtue of education, technology and our family’s efforts to rise above manual labor status. That’s called progress.

The weather hasn’t changed. It is still an unpredictable aspect of farming. Congress can’t do anything about that. But it can give farmers the help they deserve to do the right thing and legally hire the help they need to bring in this year’s harvest.

To reach Mary Sanchez, call 816-234-4752 or send e-mail to