THE CHANGING LANDSCAPE: EVERYTHING AG EMPLOYERS SHOULD UNDERSTAND ABOUT FARM LABOR LAW

The National Ag Law center is hosting a webinar 11 a.m. Aug. 9 on Farm Labor Laws for agricultural employers.

In April 2023, according to USDA’s annual Farm Labor report, there were 651,000 workers employed directly by farms and ranches, up 5% from the same week in 2022. Labor costs for those hired workers, according to data from the 2017 Census of Agriculture, account for 12 percent of production expenses for farms. However, that number was significantly higher for more labor-intensive businesses such as greenhouse and nursery operations (43%), and fruit and tree nut operations (39%). From any perspective, hired laborers are an important component to agricultural production, and it is essential that agricultural employers are familiar with laws and regulations relevant to those employees.

Discussion will include several major topics of immediate and national interest:

• Staffing solutions to labor shortages in the agricultural industry;

• OSHA compliance concerning heat related illnesses;

• Wage and Hour compliance and the rapidly changing pace of misclassification, plaintiffs suits and changes to the adverse effect wage rate;

• Employment eligibility verification compliance and updates to Form I-9 and federal E-Verify programs;

• Agricultural employers and their interactions with pregnant employees;

• Agricultural employers and their relationship with student workers, child labor and interns; and

• Agricultural employers and their obligation to yield to religious accommodations in view of recent Supreme Court precedent.

Register online here.

Federal Crop Insurance Corporation To Host Stakeholders Listening Sessions

The Federal Crop Insurance Corporation (FCIC) is hosting listening sessions and requesting public input about prevented planting provisions of the Common Crop Insurance Policy (CCIP), Basic Provisions. The Arkansas session will be held Aug. 3 at the University of Arkansas Rice Research and Extension Center, following the field day.

Prevented planting is a feature of many crop insurance plans providing payment to cover certain pre-plant costs for crops prevented from being planted due to an insurable cause of loss. FCIC is interested in public input on the following:

• Additional prevented planting coverage based on harvest prices in situations when harvest prices are higher than established prices initially set by FCIC prior to planting;

• The requirement that acreage must have been planted to a crop, insured, and harvested, in at least 1 of the 4 most recent crop years;

• Additional levels of prevented planting coverage;

• Prevented planting coverage on contracted crops;

• And other general prevented planting questions. Stakeholders are invited to respond to this request for information or to participate in the listening session(s).