Washington, D.C.— Former Secretary of Agriculture and U.S. Trade Representative Clayton Yeutter is urging Congress to take action now to address America’s worsening farm labor crisis. In a July 28 letter to the entire Senate Committee on Agriculture, Yeutter urged enactment of comprehensive reforms that have been negotiated over several years by representatives of agricultural employers and workers.
With a gruesome backdrop of tragic deaths by desperate workers crossing the Mexican border in search of economic opportunity, Yeutter described a labor crisis in agriculture that has spread from south to north, from east to west, and through agricultural sectors including fruit and vegetable, dairy, nursery and greenhouse, grain harvesting, beef and pork, chicken and other poultry, turfgrass sod and Christmas trees. As awareness of the problem grows, concerns are also rippling through the farm credit and agricultural supplier communities, further threatening the stability of rural economies in anxious times.
An estimated 70 percent of the seasonal agricultural workforce in America is feared to lack proper work authorization, and less than 2 percent of the workforce is provided by a poorly functioning 50-year-old H-2A guest worker program.
“American farmers are in a ‘damned if you do, damned if you don’t’ situation where they’re required by law to be policemen, immigration officials and security experts while simultaneously getting the crops harvested before they spoil,” Yeutter emphasized.
Farm worker and employer negotiations have achieved broad consensus on reforms that would establish a path to legal status for those experienced and essential workers who are out of status, and would reform the H-2A program to provide a legal labor safety net for employers. The negotiations have been nurtured by a bipartisan group of leaders in Congress such as Sens. Larry Craig (ID), Gordon Smith (OR) and Bob Graham (FL), and Reps. Chris Cannon (UT), Howard Berman (CA), Adam Putnam (FL), George Radanovich (CA) and Devin Nunes (CA).
Yeutter advised that embracing these reforms now will enable the U.S. government to better focus limited enforcement resources toward true security threats, while also applying modern entry/exit tracking, identification and documentation requirements to migrant farm workers. “Necessary reforms include fair and stronger security and identification measures,” he said.
Unless tackled with vision, courage and bipartisanship, the agricultural labor crisis threatens the very survival of vital agriculture sectors in America.
“The status quo is simply unacceptable,” Yeutter concluded. “It puts both American employers and immigrant workers in an untenable situation, with a high cost in economic efficiency, respect for the law, and sometimes even in human life. It is time, and in our great country’s interest, to enact these reforms.”
Yeutter served as Agriculture Secretary in the Reagan administration, and as U.S. Trade Representative for President George H.W. Bush.