Rare breed: A US shepherd
At 58, military vet steps in to learn job as agricultural visa backlog slows immigrant flow
DIXIE NATIONAL FOREST, Utah — “The object is to keep ’em grazing,” Scott Stubbs said as he looked over the 1,470 ewes and lambs chewing up Castle Valley’s dandelions, clover and grasses. “Get them full, which makes them fat.”
Stubbs, a fifth-generation sheep farmer in southern Utah, did not expect to be giving a hands-on shepherding seminar this summer, but he was stuck. He needed a second herder, and the one who was supposed to arrive in the spring from Peru did not get approval for a special agricultural visa. Now backlogs at some foreign passport offices and U.S. consulates — compounded by the pandemic — were delaying a replacement.
That’s why Stubbs in June ended up hiring Duane Rogers, a type of worker rarer than a blue lamb in these parts: an American-born beginner who was eager to herd sheep.
“Nobody wants this type of work,” Stubbs said of herding and farm labor. And most American-born workers haven’t wanted it in a while — at least at the wages that most farmers say they can afford. That is why more than 200,000 temporary foreign farmworkers, mostly from Mexico, were allowed into the United States last year to pick cherries, tomatoes and tobacco or to tend livestock.
Stubbs, 54, started using the agricultural visa program, known as H-2A, eight years ago. Through an agency, he hired a Peruvian, Ronal Leon Parejas, who is still with him.
Before then, aside from family members or the occasional high school student who would pitch in for a few weeks, the only people in recent years willing to herd sheep were Native Americans or undocumented immigrants, Stubbs said. This year, the Navajo herder who had been working for him needed a knee operation. At 68, he probably wouldn’t be coming back.
A herder has to stay with the sheep 24 hours a day through the roughly 10-month period on the open range, in sun and rain, hail and snow. There are no weekends or holidays off.
The H-2A program has been criticized for low wages and lack of worker protections. For workers under the visa program, the pay is set by the government, and has increased in recent years. In Utah, it is $1,728 a month plus transportation, room and board.
In this case, the room is a 14-by-8foot sheep wagon that has a bed, a wood-fire stove, a gas grill and a cooler. Stubbs delivers requested food — eggs, bacon, sandwich meat, bread, potato chips, cookies, soda and cans of chile and corn — every few days, along with water.
“I’m grateful that Scott gave me a chance,” Rogers said.
At 58, Rogers has tried his hand at various jobs. He grew up in Hayden, Colorado, where his father owned a small farm and raised some cattle and sheep. He served in the military for 12 years and did a tour in Panama before joining the National Guard. In addition to herding cattle and working as a ranch hand, he has driven trucks, maintained highways, worked in construction, plowed snow and guarded women and children who had been arrested at the border and locked up in Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention centers — a job he said he hated because of the conditions.
He was fascinated by the nomadic life. And he was excited to train his dogs to herd sheep.
He was jobless when he applied.