Congress fails to pass farm labor reforms in omnibus spending bill
Fighting the final hours of 2022 and the lame duck session of Congress, Sen. Michael Bennet, D-Colo., took the floor on Monday, urging his colleagues to pass the Affordable and Secure Food Act.
The bill would have reformed and streamlined the current H-2A visa program, provided a path to citizenship and set wage standards that would have provided much-needed wage stability; however, it did not garner the bipartisan support it needed to pass in the Senate in the omnibus spending bill.
“Congress has once again failed to deliver the reforms that the fresh produce industry and its agricultural allies have long fought for. IFPA did its part to reach an agreement with advocates for our workers and garnered bipartisan support for compromise legislation,” International Fresh Produce Association Chief Policy Officer Robert Guenther said in a news release. “Additionally, IFPA joined with hundreds of agriculture organizations actively supporting the bill and pushing Senate leadership to bring up the Affordable and Secure Food Act.”
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Despite the setback, fresh produce industry advocates remain committed to leading the push for Congress to reform immigration for the agriculture and food industry.
“Congress missed a huge opportunity and did not do their part to improve production and increase the legal supply of labor. Because of this inaction, consumers will continue to see record prices at the grocery store, producers will continue to face unaffordable, unpredictable input costs from out-of-control wage hikes, and we will continue down the path to being a nation that is increasingly food insecure. We implore the Senate to not walk away from this effort before they adjourn,” Guenther said in the release.
Call to reform goes unmet
In Bennet’s speech, the senator drew attention to the broken system and current immigration and farm labor crisis.
“Today, America’s farmers and ranchers are short more than 100,000 workers — all across this country — to plant seeds, to pick berries, to raise cattle, and do the hard, essential work of feeding this country,” Bennet said in his speech to Congress. “It’s why growers across America are banging down the doors of this Capitol, pleading with us, to fix the broken H-2A system for farm workers. It is obvious to everybody — who’s had anything to do with this system — that it’s completely broken. There is no argument that could be made that it’s not.”
Bennet urged Congress to address the conditions that farm workers currently experience without protections or legal status, calling the current situation “hopelessly, embarrassingly outdated."
“We don’t have to accept hundreds of thousands of people living in the shadows, when they work every single day — they’re breaking their backs, and I don’t use that term lightly, working in some of the worst conditions that there are to work in — to feed the American people. To give us economic security and food security and provide for our national security,” said Bennet. “And we shouldn’t accept crushing food prices for families just because this Congress can’t reform an antiquated H-2A program. And we can do something about this this week before we go home with this proposal.”
Watch Bennet’s full speech on the floor of the Senate.
