04/26/07 Agriculture's need for immigration policy

There's new legislation in Congress to reform the nation's immigration policy. It's called the Strive Act and while its backers say it will fill the bill not all farmers agree. PEREZ "It includes a number of good provisions which would allow agriculture to maintain a workforce over the next two to three years but what do we do after that?" American Farm Bureau's Austin Perez says any new legislation has to deal with the long term impact on agriculture. He says once they're legalized many farm workers leave agriculture for higher paying construction jobs. PEREZ "It's absolutely critical that we get a guest working program, not just any guest worker program but one that we can use. There are a number of requirements in that legislation which we think create enough burden and enough complexity in the guest working program that few farmers would be able to use it." Perez says farmers are running out of time and will face another year where crops will rot in the field for a lack of labor. PEREZ "We have a number of farmers who are making decisions to scale back orchards. They're relocating to other countries or they're decreasing production in the United States. We need to get something done and we need to get something done this year." Perez says the Strive Act would require a farmer hiring temporary guest workers to get approval from four different agencies, something he says most would be unwilling to do. Voice of Idaho Agriculture Bill Scott