WAFLA Annual Report

WAFLA Annual Report. I’m Greg Martin with today’s Fruit Grower Report.

The Washington Farm Labor Association’s annual report is out and according to Dan Fazio it appears that farmers are seeing the benefit of the H2A program.

FAZIO: Labor is one of the most crucial issues for farmers in the Pacific Northwest and one of the fastest growing programs to help farmers achieve a stable and affordable labor supply is the federal H2A guest worker program. We at the Washington Farm Labor Association are excited to publish a 2013 H2A Annual Report for Washington State. In 2013 there were more than 6000 workers in the state working under this H2A visas and that’s about a 50% increase from 2012.

Fazio says the program seems to be taking off.

FAZIO: We also saw a 40% increase in the number of applications filed indicating that there’s lots of innovative new growers that are using the program for the first time and you know one of our goals it to make the program affordable for small or medium sized growers was well.

He says the report highlights ways that farmers can make the program more affordable like teaming up with another farmer to cut the costs in half. If you are interested in reading this annual report you can find it on their website at wafla.org.

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