California Farmworkers Absent and Revised Grizzly Listing Denounced
From the Ag Information Network, this is your Agribusiness Update.
**Scores of California farmworkers stayed home last week amid an immigration enforcement operation conducted in Kern County by U.S. Border Patrol.
Peter Belluomini, who grows and packs lemons, mandarins and navel oranges east of Bakersfield, and is in the middle of harvest, says ‘the crew didn’t show up.’ ‘Instead of 30 people, there were like five.’
Belluomini was referring to workers hired through a farm labor contractor.
**As the application deadline for the new Market Assistance for Specialty Crops Program has passed, the USDA reminds specialty crop producers of the January 31st deadline to apply for the Food Safety Certification and Specialty Crops Program for 2024 expenses.
With a total of $2.65 billion available, MASC helps specialty crop producers expand markets and manage higher costs.
FSA is also increasing the MASC payment limit from $125,000 to $900,000.
**The National Cattlemen’s Beef Association and the Public Lands Council denounced the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s revised grizzly bear listing.
They also pushed back against the agency rejecting state petitions to delist grizzlies under the Endangered Species Act in the Northern Continental Divide and Greater Yellowstone Ecosystems.
NCBA’s Garrett Edmonds says by creating this barrier to recovery, the Biden administration is further weaponizing the ESA and aiming it at rural communities on their way out the door.
