January 4, 2012
www.gfb.org
Vol. 30 No. 1
GEORGIA DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE RELEASES AG LABOR REPORT Georgia Agriculture Commissioner Gary Black released a report on agriculture labor in Georgia, offering practical solutions to address the concerns of Georgia’s largest and oldest industry. The report, required by Georgia House Bill 87, was delivered to Governor Nathan Deal, Lieutenant Governor Casey Cagle and Speaker David Ralston on Jan. 3. “The results of this survey continue to make clear that the solution to labor issues facing Georgia producers rests in the hands of the federal government,” Black said. “Agriculture is our state’s number one industry, yet the federal government is failing to provide our farmers with the skilled labor they need to harvest crops in a legal and efficient manner. It is time that our friends in Washington step up to the plate and provide us with a system that works.” The first recommendation in the report points out that only the federal government has the ability to reform existing agriculture guest worker programs to make them useful and effective for farmers. Available options for farmers are too cumbersome, unreliable and bureaucratic to be practical in today’s modern economy. The report also recommends that more resources be put in place for educating the agriculture industry about the federal H-2A program. The final recommendation suggests more research be conducted in order to fully understand agriculture labor in Georgia. The 189-page report included the results of the GDA’s survey. The study obtained responses from 138 Georgia counties, with more than 800 producers responding to the survey, including those from small and large scale operations. One fourth of those surveyed indicated they had lost income in 2011 because of a lack of available laborers. Of the survey respondents who are producers of blueberries, cabbage, cantaloupe, cucumbers, eggplant, peppers, squash, tobacco and watermelons, more than 50 percent reported income losses. The report provides a summary of federal legislation attempting to address agricultural guest worker issues, including the Better Agricultural Resources Now (BARN) Act introduced by Reps. Jack Kingston (R-Ga.) and Lynn Westmoreland (R-Ga.) and the Helping Agriculture Receive Verifiable Employees Securely and Temporarily (HARVEST) Act introduced by Georgia Sen. Saxby Chambliss. “We need senators and representatives from other states to join this effort in creating a solution to fix the problem,” he said. “Our livelihoods are at stake.” It also included a summary of new immigration laws and initiatives in other states, as well as Black’s testimony before Congress on migrant farm labor and the text of HB87. The full report is available online here: http://www.agr.georgia.gov/AgLaborReport.pdf.