Workforce Summit

Workforce Summit

Workforce Summit. I’m Greg Martin with today’s Fruit Grower Report.

Most ag operations are either in full swing or gearing up for harvests and that means of course having enough workers to get the job done. Dan Fazio, Executive Director of the Washington Farm Labor Association discusses an upcoming meeting.

FAZIO: The summit has two objectives, first of all for all of agriculture whether it’s tree fruit, dairy, nursery, shellfish producers, whatever; all agriculture needs to come together to tell the government leaders what we need here in this workforce. What we want is a legal workforce and we want access to a credible program for seasonal workers.

The Workforce Summit is planned for - Tuesday, August 16 in Wenatchee & Wednesday, August 17 in Yakima. Registration is required to attend.

FAZIO: We’re willing to step up but the government is not doing its part so we need to provide input to leaders; all the congressional leaders from both the state and federal level are going to be at this conference so farmers need to tell them how important this issue is.

Fazio says there is a second objective for the summit.

FAZIO: We’re going to unveil a new way for employers to try to use the current guest worker program. It’s called the H2A and employers are quite frankly frustrated because it’s so hard to do to get that legal and stable workforce so we’ve got a new plan for people to be able to try it out in an affordable way and so we’re going to be talking about that idea.

For more information on the summit visit wafla.org/trainingandevents.

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

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