Yogurt craze drives dairy growth in New York, raising pressure for immigration reform

New York is on the fast track to becoming the yogurt capital of the world, with state yogurt production having doubled from 158 million pounds in 2005 to 1.2 billion pounds in 2011. But with many of the workers migrants, the future of the business relies on the fate of the immigration bill, Chris Clayton reports for DTN The Progressive Farmer. There are about 11 million illegal immigrants in the U.S., many of whom work in agriculture and small businesses. About 70 percent of U.S. farmworkers are thought to be in the country illegally. (DTN photo by Chris Clayton: The Emerlings farm near Perry, N.Y. has 20 employees, many of them immigrants)

"The importance of yogurt to dairy farmers in New York is akin to that of ethanol to corn farmers in Iowa," Clayton writes. Several major corporations have shown interest in starting yogurt businesses in New York, including a proposed 350,000-square-foot yogurt processor in Batavia. The $200 million investment will hire 150 employees. The plant is adjacent to a new $20 million Greek yogurt plant.

Finding Americans to work at the plants has been difficult. John Emerling, whose 1,200-cow operation has 20 employees, many of them Hispanics, told Clayton that despite high unemployment, "it wouldn't matter what we paid. People just wouldn't answer."

So the New York yogurt business turns its eyes to the House, which may not take up the immigration bill until October," Clayton writes. The Senate reform bill, which passed in June, would legalize the 11 million now in the country illegally. "The bill has a special provision giving a 'blue card' to farm workers who have worked at least 100 days on farms over a two-year period in 2011-12. After five years, they can become permanent residents. Five years later, those workers can apply for citizenship. The bill also would allow up to 112,333 new agricultural worker visas, a number that could grow depending on labor conditions." (Read more)