AFBF & NFU Calling For Changes To Ag Worker Program

Immigration reform bills failed in the Senate last week, but farm leaders are pressing for House action that they want to include agricultural workers.  The American Farm Bureau Federation is urging lawmakers to get behind a bid by Bob Goodlatte to include the AG Act in his broader immigration reform bill.

“Some of our farmers have told us directly that they have to make decisions to plow under a crop because they don’t have enough workers leaving hundreds of thousands, and in some cases millions dollars just plowed into the ground out there because they don’t have the workers to pick it up,” said AFBF public policy executive director Dale Moore.

The Goodlatte AG Act would create a new H-2C program that expands the existing H-2A to cover dairy and some vegetables.  National Farmers Union chief Roger Johnson said ag immigration labor reforms are a must.

“We are becoming less and less competitive and we have larger and larger labor related problems in this sector of the economy.

Johnson argued the U.S. can either harvest its food with immigrant labor or get rid of that labor and import food from other countries with lower labor standards.

If you have a story idea for the Washington Ag Network, call (509) 547-1618, or e-mail gvaagen@cherrycreekradio.com