E-Verify Fizzle

E-Verify Fizzle. I’m Greg Martin with today’s Fruit Grower Report.

Fruit growers in the northwest are struggling to get through this harvest season due to a shortage of labor. There just aren’t enough hands to get the job done and that is one area that Washington DC has been slow to react to. A stable, legal workforce for the nations ag producers. A lot of ideas keep getting thrown around but bottom line is that nothing is getting done. Washington Congressman, Doc Hastings says the once “belle of the ball” e-verify program is just not making it.

HASTINGS: The bill right now did pass out of committee but in other quarters, other areas other than agriculture there are concerns being raised about the bill. The agriculture concerns are of course that without a companion guest worker bill, e-verify would be devastating to our labor intensive crops that we grow in the northwest.

Amid this, Hastings says there is a small amount of good news.

HASTINGS: The bill right now is languishing. I’m just not sure that it’s going to move before the end of the year but we’ll see. The good news is there is now a recognition that labor intensive agriculture needs to be dealt with but the legislation supporting that still has some problems that need to be worked out.

At least someone recognizes that it does take a lot of hands to get the job done.

HASTINGS: But the good news again is that there is now a recognition in this Congress that labor intensive agriculture needs to be treated differently and when I say differently, it need to be treated with a predictable, workable guest worker plan other than the existing H2A but unfortunately it’s tied up in the larger issue of immigration and illegal immigration.

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