Rob Valicoff used H-2A guest workers for the first time this year, hoping to ensure a legal work force and to avoid a major harvest disruption. With seasonal labor becoming scarce, more tree fruit producers are using the H-2A program, a federal temporary foreign guest-worker program, to ensure a legal work force. The program is costly and cumbersome, but it can work for some. Stemilt Management, Inc., in Wenatchee, Washington, hired foreign guest workers to get its apples picked last harvest, but general manager Mike Robinson fears the high costs of the H-2A program might not be sustainable for the […]