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Earlier this year, the House Agriculture Committee created the bipartisan Agricultural Labor Working Group with seven Democrats and seven Republicans working to identify and find solutions for the workforce issues faced by agricultural producers around the nation.
The group held roundtable sessions on a number of topics related to the H-2A guest worker program in an attempt to identify issues and create solutions.
Congressman Doug LaMalfa (R-CA-01) is one of the Republicans on the workgroup.
“We’re trying to find all the pieces you can agree on unanimously or agree on, say, by a supermajority and then things that we would agree on was just a bare minimum,” he said. “Things that are still somewhat bipartisan and see what elements of that can be successful in a in a bill going forward.”
He said it’s a challenge to try to meet the needs of producers all over the nation.
“Well, it’s kind of a regional thing. Different regions want different things,” he said. “Some regions, they’re looking for the ability to have greater variability in wages. Some are demanding more ability to have processors participate. For example, they want more processors to have the same type of labor. And I’m for those conversations, but if they blow up the bill, the ability to pass a bill, then you aren’t getting anywhere.”
Sometimes there isn’t a good compromise.
“That’s why in the previous bill, although we talked about having processor labor be part of it, we knew that was going to be kind of a deal killer. So, [we decided] let’s leave that one and come back to it at a different time,” he said.
LaMalfa also pointed out that the H-2A issues the working group was created for are separate from the farm bill.