House Ag Creates Agricultural Labor Working Group

Labor is consistently a top concern for U.S. agriculture and the focus of the House Ag Committee and the new Agricultural Labor Working Group. Representative David Rouzer, a Republican from North Carolina says it’s something they are hearing about from farmers and ranchers…

“And all of the listening sessions that we've had for this farm bill, labor is number one, number two issue, number one issue in many places. And given that, I think GT, our chairman, he felt the need to pull together a focus group from the House Agriculture Committee that represented all different areas of the country, both Republican and Democrat, to try to bring in, our farm leaders from around the country and have a real honest conversation about what's achievable on the Ag labor front.”

Rouzer says the labor issue gets wrapped into immigration quickly…

“It’s really a worker issue, it’s really truly a labor issue more than it is an immigration issue, but because these workers that are needed, you know, would have to come from other countries, south of the border in particular, historically, has been the case that's created a nexus with immigration and makes any kind of change in law very difficult.”

That’s Representative David Rouzer, a Republican from North Carolina.