The True Cost of Food: How Immigration Reform Might Affect Agriculture and Guest Workers Equal Voice
go to original March 25, 2013

Visit Equal Voice News and read about Modesto Hernandez and how immigrants play a central role in U.S. agriculture. (Equal Voice Newspaper)

As lawmakers study policy changes, U.S. farmers and ranchers are pushing for a new agriculture guest worker program.

The current guest worker program, which traces its roots to the bracero (day laborer) program initiated during World War II, enables U.S. farmers to recruit people in other countries for temporary or seasonal agriculture work if they can show a domestic labor scarcity.

Farmers say their new labor proposal http://www.agworkforcecoalition.org/proposal-for-reform/ would offer stable access to a legal workforce for the agriculture industry as well as flexibility and employment freedom for at least some guest workers. For undocumented agriculture workers already in the country, it could mean permanent legal residency.

The American Farm Bureau Federation http://www.fb.org/ says the proposal could replace the H-2A program, which the federation of 6.2 million farmers and ranchers calls rigid and bureaucratic. The H-2A program is the current policy for international agriculture workers in the country.

For the federation, a new guest worker program is one of two top issues for 2013, said Kristi Boswell, the organization’s congressional relations director.

Visit Equal Voice News and read about Modesto Hernandez and how immigrants play a central role in U.S. agriculture.

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