Stemilt Growers of Wenatchee, WA, has long delighted consumers and cultivated people through its commitment to excellence and seeking out sustainable and socially responsible products and programs. In 1989, Stemilt began its sustainability and social responsibility program, Responsible Choice, with audacious environmental sustainability goals around reducing pesticide use through integrated pest management practices.
“Today, we look at initiatives from three sides — planet, profit and people,” says Brianna Shales, Stemilt marketing director. “Social responsibility helps us on our journey to cultivate people and to remain viable for future generations. Our founder Tom Mathison’s saying lives on: We are only here for a short time, so we must leave it as good as we can, or better if we can.”
One crucial component of Stemilt’s social responsibility program is its partnership with CIERTO to ensure an ethical process for recruiting the company’s H2A guest workers. “CIERTO is an international farm labor contractor that recruits, trains, and places experienced workers on farms in the U.S.,” says Shales. “They work to eliminate fraudulent, corrupt and dangerous practices that are often involved when relocating farmworkers to the U.S. We first partnered with CIERTO in 2018, as part of a pilot for their recruitment process. Today, 100% of our more than 1,600 H2A farmworkers come through the CIERTO program, and we have a 95% return rate.”
CIERTO recruits H2A guest workers (primarily from Mexico) to work on U.S. farms, and also provides them with training to onboard them for the job. “For example, they will guide people to set personal goals called a Plan de Vida (Life Plan) so they can have commitments around what they are trying to achieve while they are away from home for many months,” says Shales.
Workers are able to transform their lives through CIERTO and working at U.S. farms such as Stemilt. “Their Plan De Vida is realized with the wages they can make during a harvest season,” says Shales. “We’ve had employees’ dreams of building a house, or starting a business come true because of their ability to see their goals through while working in the U.S. and living far from home. It’s truly inspiring to see this cultivation in people!”
The biggest benefit both to Stemilt and the guest workers is the transparent and ethical process followed, explains Shales. “Before CIERTO was born, a worker would often have to pay a fee to come to the U.S. to work, setting them financially back,” she says. “Now, they are set up for success and able to transform their lives and achieve personal goals by completing their contracted work. Retailers benefit from this Stemilt/CIERTO partnership because it provides them with transparency into the labor supply chain, and ensures that guest workers are coming to the country ethically.”
CIERTO is recognized by the International Labor Organization and other government agencies for its transformative recruitment model. “We hope this model of H2A recruitment becomes the norm for producers,” says Shales. “H2A guest workers are critical to our ability to harvest crops in Washington State and keep Stemilt a viable business. Without that sustainable workforce, we would struggle to get high-quality fruit harvested each year. Bringing skilled and highly trained workers to our farms and maintaining a high retention rate is great for our operations, but the biggest benefit is helping to cultivate people.”
