Congress Hopeful for H-2A Reform as Talks Progress

With only a couple of weeks remaining in the lame-duck legislative session in Congress, the Senate is feeling the pressure to pass the Farm Workforce Modernization Act.

U.S. Representative Dan Newhouse says they’ve been making some progress in recent days.

“Some of the stumbling blocks or the challenges in the House language are being addressed in a positive way in the Senate. And so, I think the number of Republican Senators that are indicating support or a likelihood of voting yes is growing.”

One of the issues, Newhouse says is farm wages.

“We just recently got the projected wage numbers, the percentage and the amount of increases that each state would see in the Adverse Wage Rate is pretty significant for some states, 14-15% increases over last year.”