King wonders if Vilsack is ‘secretary of amnesty’

For U.S. Rep. Steve King it was obviously an attack so nice that he had to use it twice.

King issued a press release in late August deriding U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack for saying that without comprehensive immigration reform, American consumers will wind up spending “a lot more” for food. On Thursday, King hit the same notes while crafting his e-mail newsletter to constituents and supporters.

While interviewing with the Politico, Vilsack made the assertion that America’s relatively inexpensive foods can be linked to the immigrant workers employed by farms and other agricultural-related industries.

From Politico:

“But, if you didn’t have these folks, you would be spending a lot more — three, four or five times more — for food, or we would have to import food and have the food security risks. Neither is what Americans want. What they want is what we have. Which is why we need comprehensive immigration reform.”

King, a Republican from Kiron who is known for his strict stance against illegal immigration, took immediate exception to the comment, and has used it to allude to a grand scheme by Vilsack, President Barack Obama and other administration officials to enact blanket policy or legislation that would allow all immigrants to become citizens.

Data compiled by the USDA and the Bureau of Labor Statistics, according to King, indicates that the cost of labor represents only 6 percent of the prices consumers pay for fresh fruits and vegetables. This statistic was also quoted in a 2007 white paper developed by the conservative Center for Immigration Studies to argue that the media was exaggerating farm labor shortages. While that white paper contains a lengthy bibliography, the statement in the introduction of labor only representing a 6 percent contribution to the price of food is not attributed.

The USDA’s Economic Research Service provides price spread data on the U.S. food marketing system. The breakdown of a dollar spent on food in 2006 is represented by the USDA-developed graphic below:

This graphic, which indicates that more than 30 percent of a consumer dollar as being spent on labor does not prove or disprove the statistics quoted by King. What it does show, however, is the small fraction of consumer cost that is paid to the farmer, and also the large chunk, more than 30 percent, that goes to post-farm laborers.  Following Postville and other food processing immigration raids in Iowa and around the country, it is well-known that many post-farm, food processing workers are immigrants.

In 1950, according to the USDA, farmers received 41 cents for every dollar spent on food. In 2006 — the most recent year with statistics available — farmers received 19 cents for every dollar spent. Of that remaining 81 cents, the vast majority was consumed by labor costs.

King, however, is looking specifically at the percentage of the dollar that represents farm income, and stating that only 6 percent of it is paid out in labor wages. Cost of production for America’s farmers varies greatly on many factors, but especially on the types of crops grown. For instance, the 2010 forecasts for major field crops, which provide a national average that differs greatly by size of farm,  indicates logically that the more labor-intensive a product is, the higher percentage of farm profits that will be expended for workers.

Nationally the percentage paid for labor on a corn field is less than 1 percent. A peanut farmer on the other hand will spent 2 percent of profits on laborers. But cost of production at Iowa dairies, according to USDA data, includes a labor percentage of more than 17 percent. The allocated overhead of California dairymen, according to the USDA, was more than 30 percent hired labor during 2010.

In his newsletter King specifically indicates that the 6 percent figure relates to the consumer price for “fresh fruits and vegetables, the market in which illegal immigrant labor is most prevalent. Although The Iowa Independent attempted to find cost for production estimates specific to that industry, it came up empty handed, and requests for information from the federal agencies were not immediately answered. In 2009 paper published by the Congressional Research Service discussing the import and export of fruit and vegetable products, author Renee Johnson notes that “a survey of California agricultural producers ranked workers’ compensation requirements, air quality and land use regulations at the top three regulatory areas that have a perceived negative effect on farmers’ financial, operational and managerial aspects of production.”

Research published in 2004 by the California Polytechnic State University Department of Agribusiness indicates that 21 percent of total farm production expense in California is allocated to labor. That figure, according to researchers, ranks third behind Florida, where 24 percent of total farm production expense is labor, and Washington, where 22 percent goes to labor.