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Shining Light on Farm & Food Policy for 20 Years.
Saturday, February 01, 2025
In this opinion piece, Dave Puglia, the president and CEO of Western Growers, argues that the nation's food production is vulnerable to indiscriminate immigration sweeps amid congressional inaction on H-2A reforms.
Tax and spending cuts are at the top of the to-do list for congressional Republicans and President-elect Donald Trump. But there are a broad array of other issues in play that are critical to food and agriculture, from farm bill and the next dietary guidelines to regulations for pesticides and gene-edited crops, and the future of the Biden administration's climate policies.
Congressional leaders were nailing down the final details of a stopgap spending bill Monday night that was expected to include $10 billion in economic assistance for farmers, as well as a one-year farm bill extension, sources tell Agri-Pulse.
The Adverse Effect Wage Rate that farmers are required to pay H-2A workers is rising by an average of 4.47% nationally to $17.74 per hour, according to list of 2025 wage rates published in a Federal Register notice Monday.
Provisions in a Labor Department rule addressing the treatment and pay of H-2A farmworkers have been enjoined by a federal judge who ruled Monday the department exceeded its authority or did not adequately explain why it was changing its regulations.
Farmworker wages rose 3.2% nationally this year from 2023, according to an American Farm Bureau Foundation analysis of USDA’s Farm Labor Survey, which is used to set H-2A minimum wage rates.
Several farm groups, led by the International Fresh Produce Association, filed a lawsuit Tuesday evening against the Department of Labor’s H-2A rule finalized in April.
A Labor Department rule issued this spring to protect farmworkers is unconstitutional because it gives farmworkers collective bargaining rights, a federal judge in Georgia ruled Monday, enjoining enforcement of the rule in 17 states.
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