05/01/08 Supporting H2A

Supporting H2A. I'm Greg Martin with today's Fruit Grower Report. The growing season is underway and already questions are being asked as to whether there will be enough workers this season. US Apples Director of Public Affairs, Dianne Kurrle says the H2A program continues to be utilized. KURRLE: With regard to H2A as has been the case in the past few years we do expect that there will continue to be an increase in the number of growers using the program as a result of the uncertainty surrounding other more traditional labor sources and the enforcement that continues to happen and everything else that's going on. Kurrle says that the Bush Administration has been working on keeping the labor force intact. KURRLE: The Bush Administration did recently come out with some proposed regulations to streamline and make the program easier to use for growers. After the comprehensive immigration reform bill failed last summer, the Bush Administration made a couple of promises. One was that they were going to continue to enforce the laws but they also recognized both the work the agriculture sector had done in support of the comprehensive bill as well as the unique attributes of agriculture which I think really put our industry on the front lines of this issue so recognizing that the Bush Administration mad a commitment to streamline the H2A program through the regulatory process. She says even though this was a good step forward there are still things that concern them. More on that tomorrow. That's today's Fruit Grower Report. I'm Greg Martin on the Northwest Ag Information Network.