Immigration Reform

Immigration Reform. I’m Greg Martin with today’s Fruit Grower Report.

As a bipartisan group of Senators introduced legislation yesterday dealing with comprehensive immigration reform, members of the Agriculture Workforce Coalition held a press conference Wednesday highlighting the crucial stake American agriculture, has in the debate. Nancy Foster with U.S. Apple.

FOSTER: American apple growers are strongly supportive of the Agriculture Immigration Reform package. We’ve worked long and hard to get there and we’re a founding member of the Agriculture Workforce Coalition and proud to be a part of that.

Foster says with the growing demand for apples it’s important that they can be grown right here and not imported.

FOSTER: America’s apple growers face a labor crisis and they need immigration reform. They need this bill to ensure that their crop can be harvested each year. Each American apple, and that means over 20-billion of these apples must be picked by hand - coast to coast. Apples are grown in 36 states. We believe these apples should be grown by American farmers, not foreign growers and we need a reliable and skilled workforce to do that.

Approximately 70-thousand workers are needed each year for apple harvest.

FOSTER: The old saying we’ve all hear as American as apple pie may become obsolete unless this labor crisis is solved. The number one priority for American apple growers is passing legislation that ensures their orchards will have the labor they need, when they need it and this bill does that.

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