Thoughts from the Tractor Seat: When Fear Peaks, Who Picks?

Jun 21

Written By Columbia Community Connection

By Ken Polehn

The Dalles, Ore., June 21, 2025 — Just days ago, I stood at the edge of our orchard here in Wasco County, looking out over a sea of sweet cherries—blushing, full, and ready. The weather lined up. The quality is excellent. We should be celebrating a strong year. But instead, we’re fielding phone calls from neighbors and fellow growers asking: Where are the workers?

I have enough hands for now — and I count that as a blessing. But I know that’s not the case for everyone. One fellow grower told me they had 50 workers confirmed and ready to travel north for cherry season. When harvest began, only ten showed up. Ten. That’s not a labor shortage — that’s a labor collapse.

And it’s not because people don’t want to work. It’s because they’re afraid to travel.

The same migrant workers who move north every year with the harvest are hesitating. Mixed messages from the federal government have sown fear and confusion across the entire agricultural labor network. ICE officials say farms aren’t a priority one day, then reverse course the next. Whether or not raids actually happen is almost beside the point now. The damage is in the fear — and that fear is real.

This isn't just Washington’s problem. This is playing out across the Northwest, including right here in our backyard. We've got cherries ripening fast, and growers calling around, begging for help — just trying to hold on until the late-season varieties come on. Even then, the heat and even rain could knock the quality down before anyone gets a ladder in the row.

And as we scramble, the market is falling.

In the first two weeks of harvest, domestic and global cherry prices have steadily declined. Exporters are pulling back. The market isn’t responding to the crisis in the field — prices remain low, even as growers struggle to get fruit picked. Even when we do manage to get fruit harvested, we’re selling into a market that doesn’t reflect the cost of production.

It’s easy to see how a season like this pushes more small growers to the edge. Erik Zavala of the Blue Bird co-op in Wenatchee said it plainly in a June 2025 report by KUOW and OPB: “We’re probably going to lose 10 to 20 percent of small growers this year.” He’s not exaggerating.

That same report highlighted what’s really driving this year’s crisis: uncertainty. Growers across Eastern Washington said they haven’t seen ICE raids, but fear alone — stoked by mixed federal messaging, social media, and past enforcement actions — is enough to keep migrant labor from moving north.

Some might say this is just the market at work. But I’ve been in this business long enough to know when policy plays a role. This year’s harvest isn’t struggling because of weather, poor yields, or lazy workers. It’s struggling because our federal government has politicized the labor force that agriculture depends on — and left growers hanging in the process.

And when that labor force falters, so does the food supply. We don’t grow cherries with speeches or sound bites. We grow them with sweat, skill, and people — people who deserve better than fear at every turn.

As I sit here on my tailgate and watch the fruit grow heavier by the day, I keep asking myself: What happens if next year, the calls go out… and nobody comes? What if this year isn’t the exception — but the beginning of the end for family farms like ours?

We still have time to turn this around. But it’s going to take more than prayers and perseverance. It’s going to take policy that matches the reality in our fields.