A Day of Action

A Day of Action

A Day of Action. I'm Greg Martin with today's Fruit Grower Report.

On Wednesday, a coalition of business and agriculture leaders launched a Day of Action on immigration reform. The event was part of a national effort across 20 states calling on Congress to act on immigration reform this year. Yakima Valley Growers-Shippers Association, Executive Director, Jon DeVaney was part of a teleconference.

DeVANEY: For agriculture it's really essential that Congress acts to fix our broken immigration system now because predictability does matter a great deal in the immigration system for agriculture. Nationally about 80% of the hired workers on American farms are immigrants. Growers are already finding they can't always get the workers that they need.

He says labor shortages in 2012 resulted in $3.3 billion dollars in lost GDP growth nationally.

DeVANEY: And a further $1.3 billion in lost farm income. That's a serious hit to our economy due largely because of the malfunctions in our current immigration system. Also, keep in mind, if growers aren't sure they're going to be able to get the harvest labor they need for perennial crops like tree fruit they're going to be cautious about planting trees and making that long-term investment decision.

Which slows investment and overall growth in state and national economies. He says this causes impacts all along the ag chain.

DeVANEY: Apples are out states number one crop and all apples are picked by hand. A recent study by the Washington apple industry found that the total economic impact in just the state of Washington from apples to be $7.5 billion dollars supporting 61-thousand jobs.

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

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