Congress should overhaul the U.S. guest worker program so it allows foreign laborers to work year-round on farms and in meat processing plants, rather than just seasonally in the fields, said U.S. poultry and livestock groups on Tuesday. Representatives of six groups also supported prompt approval of the new NAFTA to assure a tariff-free market for meat exports.
“It’s time to resolve the immigration debate for the good of rural America’s economy,” said Minnesota turkey farmer John Zimmerman, speaking for the National Turkey Federation. David Will, who manages egg farms in California and who testified on behalf of the farm group United Egg Producers, added, “We are not a seasonal group of commodities.”
Farm groups have pressed for years for reform of immigration and guest worker laws with the goal of a legal and reliable workforce but there has been no progress. An estimated half of U.S. farm workers are undocumented. In the past five years, the number of H-2A visas for seasonal guest workers has doubled, to more than 240,000. Farm groups and the meat industry say the visa should allow year-round employment because work never ends at livestock farms and processing plants.
David Herring of the National Pork Producers Council said the USDA, “where livestock agriculture’s needs are better understood,” should replace the Labor Department as the home agency for the H-2A visa. “NPPC supports legislation that opens the program up to year-round livestock ag workers and is easier to navigate for employers.”
Hog farmers are losing $1 billion a year because of the Sino-US trade war, said Herring. “We seek an end to the trade dispute with China and the restoration of more favorable access to the world’s largest pork-consuming nation.”
The farm groups also listed ratification of the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement as a top priority. The free trade agreement will preserve duty-free access for most US farm exports to the North American neighbors, who account for one-third of U.S. food and ag trade, and provide modest gains for wheat and dairy products.
“Our other trading partners are somewhat in limbo” until the USMCA debate is resolved, said Kelley Sullivan Georgiades, a Texas cattle rancher. Trade pacts are pending with Japan and the EU, allowing some competitors to gain market share. “We have already seen the moderating of export sales to Japan in spite of their increase in beef demand as a nation.”
At nearly the same time a House Agriculture subcommittee heard from livestock groups, farm advocates called for the USDA to protect producers from unfair practices by meatpackers. Three broiler producers said they were driven out of business after they questioned the terms set by processors. “The company controls literally everything about how we get paid,” said Tony Grigsby, of Alabama, who has a petition on the internet for fair-play rules.
The Trump administration killed in October 2017 an Obama-era proposal to make it easier for livestock producers to prove unfair treatment by processors. The USDA is revisiting the so-called GIPSA rule this summer. Advocates say producers currently have little chance of prevailing in a complaint of anticompetitive practices because they have to prove harm to the entire market, rather than unfair treatment to themselves.
To watch a video of the hearing or to read written statements by the witnesses, click here.