05/02/08 Supporting H2A p2

Supporting H2A Part 2. I'm Greg Martin with today's Fruit Grower Report. The Bush administration has been trying to beef up and streamline the H2A program ever since the comprehensive immigration bill died last year. Diane Kurrle with U.S. Apple has been keeping an eye on what the government has been doing. She says there are some good pieces to the proposed changes. KURRLE: Some of the things that are very good in the proposal include an expansion of the definition of agriculture and this would allow more growers to utilize the H2A program for an expanded number of jobs including things like packing operations which have not been able to use the H2A program in the past. A big issue regarding H2A has been housing. KURRLE: The proposal would also allow for a housing voucher under certain circumstances as opposed to having to provide housing and that's been one of the biggest hurdles for growers, particularly some smaller growers that don't have housing available on their operations. But with the good comes the bad. KURRLE: It would call for an increase in the application fees from $10 per worker to $100 per worker. Considering that the program is already very costly to use and that's been one of the real impediments for a number of growers to use the program. Such a large increase would go further to dissuading people from wanting to use it. Kurrle says they are also looking at increasing the number of days in advance of the beginning of the job that a farmer would have to submit the applications. That's today's Fruit Grower Report. I'm Greg Martin on the Northwest Ag Information Network.