Changes Help Farmers

Changes Help Farmers. I’m Greg Martin with today’s Fruit Grower Report.

Dan Fazio has been with Washington State Farm Bureau’s Member Services for a long time and with that has been at the front of the states immigration issues. Now a change will make it easier to help producers in the state with these issues.  Fazio is now the Director of the Washington Farm Labor Association.

FAZIO: Our core mission is H.R. consultations. We’ve always said you can’t ask us a labor and employment question that we can’t answer and that is so hugely valuable to seasonal employers, agricultural employers because a lot of the information that’s out there is not pertinent to them and they need a source they can go to that will answer their questions.

There will be a staff of five dedicated to answering these kinds of questions. Fazio talks about what necessitated the change.

FAZIO: Really what happened is Farm Bureau wanted a way to serve it’s members that were labor intensive that we could really go after and focus on their needs and be not constrained with any other issues out there but just to focus on labor intensive agriculture.

Washington Farm Bureau members will get a free membership to the Washington Farm Labor Association. Fazio says they will focus only on labor issues and will be working with other agencies.

FAZIO: We started this with Farm Bureau but we’re also talking to a lot of other associations and I’m happy to report we’re very close to having a similar type of arrangement with all of the other agricultural associations that work with labor intensive employers. Our intent is not to add another association that’s competing with members, our intent is to work with the other associations and we need to support and supplement their efforts in this human resources and labor employment area.

That’s today’s Fruit Grower Report. I’m Greg Martin on the Ag Information Network.