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Shining Light on Farm & Food Policy for 20 Years.
Thursday, July 18, 2024
A sweeping proposed overhaul of the H-2A farm labor program would have varying impacts on worker wages, while cutting farmers’ transportation expenses and reducing the number of applications farms have to file to import employees.
The Labor Department is proposing to overhaul wage requirements and streamline the application certification process for the H-2A farmworker visa program, which is under heavy demand by growers searching for new sources of labor.
A bipartisan bill to reauthorize the Pesticide Registration Improvement Act (PRIA), which includes increased fees to help fund EPA’s pesticide program, has been introduced in the Senate.
The Environmental Protection Agency has decided to withdraw proposals under review at the Office of Management and Budget to lower the minimum age of farmworkers and certified applicators who handle pesticides.
The House takes a key step this week toward beginning negotiations with the Senate on a final farm bill, but the talks may not formally begin until August.
House Republican leaders are promising to put a bill on the floor this month to address farmer's demand for more workers but the fractious immigration debate in June suggests that passing an ag labor measure won't be easy.
The Senate has unanimously passed a bill to reauthorize the Pesticide Registration Improvement Act, which allows the Environmental Protection Agency to charge fees for pesticide registration that fund about one-third of the operations of the Office of Pesticide Programs.
Farmers will finally get the House debate they’ve wanted for years on agricultural labor needs, but it’s not clear how much they will like the solution that GOP leaders put on the floor.
Farm groups desperate to address the agricultural labor shortage are lobbying Republicans to include farm labor provisions in any legislation the House votes on this month.
