The Fruit Growers News


	The Fruit Growers News website offers a sampling of articles and features from each month. Subscribe to get all the news offered in The Fruit Growers News delivered right to you home! Permission is granted for reprinting material, except for commercial or advertising purposes, provided The Fruit Growers News is given full credit.

Web Site Promotes Fruit Industry to Migrants at Home

By Greg Brown Associate Editor

Richard Olivarez can remember sleeping in his parents’ car as a young migrant worker. Today as a monitor and an advocate of Michigan’s Migrant and Seasonal Farm Worker Program through the Michigan Department of Career Development (MDCD), Olivarez has worked to prevent others from having that experience. With his staff, he has designed a program that provides potential migrant workers with reams of information before they even set out to travel the road to Michigan. The program includes visits to their home state and the accumulation of information on the Internet. In a day when the cost of ag labor has risen considerably and the supply has seemed short, the MDCD is using technology to reach out and show what working in Michigan has to offer. “We are being proactive, promoting Michigan agriculture,” said Olivarez. “We are promoting what Michigan has to offer migrant workers.” The Migrant and Seasonal Farm Worker Web site is one of the key resources in promoting Michigan to potential migrant workers. The site includes information on jobs, potential employers, housing, advocates, daycare and education - everything a worker would need to know. For the past three years staff members travel annually to the area of Texas known as the valley, promoting Michigan ag jobs. Representing MDCD, this year the group visited six high schools within the valley meeting with over 600 potential migrant worker families. The areas visited included San Juan, La Hoya, San Benito, Brownsville and other areas. The response has been positive. In one location, over 150 people showed up for the presentation. “One migrant director said he was honored to have us there,” said Olivarez. “He was very appreciative that we were there providing that information to the migrant workers, because they need it.” Providing information is the reason for the site, and also the reason why Olivarez travels to promote it where people live. “When developing this Web site one of the things that I wanted to eliminate was what I experienced growing up in a migrant family,” said Olivarez. “When people have to get in their car and travel 3,000 miles not knowing where they are going to stay, or answers to the questions they might have, it is scary.” Gerald Deer, assistant monitor and advocate with the program and an MDCD agricultural employment specialist, has been presenting the Web site around Michigan to growers, soliciting their profiles to be featured on the site. The free profiles, that can potentially include much information - even facility pictures and types of work, are popular. “If workers need to know, for example, if there is a local migrant Head Start program, they can visit our Web site and find out,” said Deer. He told growers at the recent West Michigan Farm Labor Update in Sparta, Mich. that migrants can find out the names of local directors and where all the local Head Start centers are located. The site is garnering attention from other states. Olivarez recently returned from Albuquerque N.M. where the site information was presented to the Midwest Association of Farm Worker Organizations. The audience of state monitor advocates and regional U.S. Department of Labor Officials was shocked by the amount of information, Olivarez said. “Other states are looking at having us be a partner and helping them develop their own sites,” he said. The site will also be featured in a program on April 3 in Orlando, Fla., at the National Migrant Education Conference. Growers who are interested in profiling their business can call Deer at (231) 876-1629 to request an information sheet.
For more information visit www.michaglabor.org.