House Ag Committee Offers Farm Labor Solution

With your Southeast Regional Ag News, I am Haylie Shipp. This is the Ag Information Network.

The House Agriculture Committee laid out a roadmap in an effort to relieve labor shortages that have seriously impacted America’s farmers and ranchers. The Agriculture Labor Working Group released its final report on how to improve the H-2A guest worker program. It includes more than 20 recommendations to streamline the program and make labor more affordable for farmers.

“We’re losing American farms rapidly, and there’s no question the broken workforce system is partly to blame,” says Farm Bureau President Zippy Duvall.

While the working group recommendations don’t address all the labor challenges facing farmers, they do offer needed solutions, such as streamlining the recruiting and hiring of H-2A employees. They also want to expand the H-2A program to meet year-round needs, recommend paying employees based on duties performed during the majority of the day, and reform wage calculation standards to provide stability in farmworker pay rates.

The full committee report is available at agriculture.house.gov.