Thread: Reform and Agriculture: What are the Options?

Reform and Agriculture: What are the Options?

JULY 14, 2015 12:00 PM







By Brandon Maly
Farm Journal Media
Intern

In Washington, immigration reform may be a political issue, but in the agricultural industry, it offers an answer to the challenge of finding legal labor to work on dairies, livestock operations, and fruit and vegetable farms.

In the past 15 years, more than half of the hired workers on farms were unauthorized migrant workers, according to the U.S. Department of Labor’s National Workers Survey. With a combination of stalled immigration reform debate in Congress, increased border control and an improved Mexican economy, the U.S. farm labor supply has been dwindling.

In states like California, crop producers are facing 71% labor shortages, according to Kristi Boswell, director of congressional relations for the American Farm Bureau Federation. It’s a problem for agriculture, because if U.S. farmers can’t keep up with demand, agricultural production will shift to other countries, Boswell continues.

“If nothing changes we’re going to continue to see more shortages and more instability in the markets,” Boswell says. “We can’t sustain in that environment, and we will get to the point where instead of importing our labor, we’re importing our food.”

This comes back to the question of immigration reform, which is currently at a stalemate in divided Congress. In the meantime, the American Farm Bureau Federation has proposed a number of strategies that address the connected issues of immigration and the needed agricultural labor force.

First, current workers in the U.S. must be protected, says Bob Stallman, president of the American Farm Bureau Federation. He says this can be done through what he calls a “blue card” program.

“This is a separate program to allow workers--if they can prove they’ve worked in agriculture--to adjust their status and continue to work,” Stallman says.

Such a status would allow these agricultural workers to move forward and apply for a green card while still working in the industry, but this “blue card” would not be a necessary pathway to citizenship.

Other options might be revising the current agricultural guest worker program known as H-2A, which only supplies 4% of the needed workforce in the agriculture industry, says Chalmers Carr, president of Titan Farms in South Carolina.

Stallman of the American Farm Bureau Federation suggests moving to a two-part approach:

1. A visa for at-will employees. “Those are employees that could come across the border with a proper visa and then work wherever the work is,” Stallman says, allowing them to shift between farms in need of help.
2. A contract worker program resembling the existing H-2A program, but more streamlined in terms of paperwork and requirements. “One of the major problems with the H-2A program was the bureaucratic nightmare and regulatory process to get approval for workers to come in when you needed them,” explains Stallman. If workers aren’t cleared when it’s time to go into the field, farmers might end up losing their crops.

Those same seasonal limitations also affect livestock producers, who need workers year-round. Certain farms, such as dairies, require someone there at all times, and the current system doesn’t allow for this. With the contract worker proposal, these needs would be met, Stallman notes. However, our current policy just isn’t going to solve this problem.
Stallman isn’t the only one who thinks the current immigration situation is holding the U.S. back.

“We would be a better country if we got a rational immigration policy,” says Daniel Rothenberg, professor of law practice at Arizona State University. Unfortunately, he doesn’t expect this to happen anytime soon, given the political challenges involved.

Why don’t farmers just hire American citizens to do these jobs instead? Many have tried, Stallman says, but have seen little long-term success, given the demands of these jobs.

“If history is any indicator, we won’t be able to find U.S. workers to do these jobs,” Stallman says.

What do you think should (or could) be done about the challenge of farm worker labor shortages? Would immigration reform help? Let us know in the comments.


https://www.agweb.com/article/immigr...-brandon-maly/

Trump immigration policies have farming industry on edge


February 27, 2017


By AFP

President Donald Trump’s tough new immigration measures are sending shudders through the US farming industry, which largely employs a low-wage foreign workforce.

Since taking office on a “America first” agenda, Trump has made immigration a policy cornerstone. Among other measures, he has broadened authorities’ powers to detain and deport unauthorized immigrants.

In a tight labor market, this could leave farms with few options when looking for workers to pick the vegetables and tend to the animals that feed the country.

Eric Ooms, who runs a 450-head dairy operation in Valatie, a village about two hours north of New York City, told AFP that many people were unwilling to do the messy work of milking cows.

And in a region where unemployment hovers under five percent, the $10.50 he pays for an hour’s work attracts few US citizens.

“We just cannot find local people who want to get dirty and milk cows,” Ooms said. “I have been doing it all the time so I am used to it. It does not mean I like it but it is how it is.”
As a result, in addition to five members of his own family, Ooms employs a Mexican immigrant hired by word of mouth to get his milk past the farm gate and out to market.
– ‘Vital’ to food supply –

The US agricultural sector relies on cheap immigrant labor to keep costs down. In all, about 70 percent of farmhands were born outside the United States, the majority of them in Mexico.
The industry acknowledges that most of these workers are not legal residents in the United States, so Trump’s aggressive stance on immigration could threaten American farms.
Industry representatives nevertheless choose their words carefully.

“Increased rhetoric about enforcement is challenging,” said Kristi Boswell, a lobbyist for the American Farm Bureau, a group representing the industry.

“But it is our role to educate the country about why these workers are still vital and critical to our operations to have access to our food supply and food security.”

The organization points to the difficulties that simply expelling unauthorized migrants could create.

According to a farm bureau study, if the industry were to lose access to all undocumented workers, net farm income could be slashed by between 15 percent and 29 percent, fruit production could tumble by as much as 60 percent and consumer prices could rise about five percent.

The consequences would be particularly stark for vegetable and fruit growers, where foreign labor exceeds 40 percent, with California’s producers first in line to feel the effects.

The National Milk Producers Federation in 2015 predicted a doubling of consumer milk prices in the absence of immigrant labor, which accounts for 80 percent of American milk.

There are visa programs for farm workers, but with hundreds of thousands of people work US farms without proper immigration status, legal immigrant labor is a drop in the bucket.

The H-2A agricultural guest worker visa program, intended to meet the industry’s need for workers to bring in the harvest, is largely insufficient: in 2013, only 71,000 visas were granted, according to a congressional report.

The visa program makes employers responsible for workers’ housing and transport and has been criticized for lacking flexibility, creating delays when harvesting cannot wait.
Industry representatives say they hope to use the debate spurred by Trump’s immigration policies to gain a greater audience for their calls for reforms that could lead to a legalized work force.

In the meantime, Eric Ooms has invested in equipment to automate the milking of his cows — a purchase of more than $1 million that could protect his farm from a potential labor shortage.


http://www.breitbart.com/news/trump-...ustry-on-edge/

The National Milk Producers Federation in 2015 predicted a doubling of consumer milk prices in the absence of immigrant labor, which accounts for 80 percent of American milk.

That's a lie. Labor to milk the cows is a small fraction of the cost of milk production, delivery and sales.

Put low risk prisoners in these jobs. Pay them a wage to be put in a fund for when their time is served.

Many prisoners have to pay child support...use it to pay that!