Where our members stand on: Reliable agricultural workforce

From Edge government affairs team

The Problem
Dairy farms face a shortage of workers and our farmers have come to rely more on immigrant labor to fill crucial job openings. Unfortunately, there is no way for farmers to protect their existing workforce or any practical process to hire new foreign workers who are legally authorized to work. The current agriculture visa program is outdated and only permits seasonal employment. That does not work for dairy farmers who own cows that need to be milked every day all year long.

The Solution
Dairy farmers need a multi-year, renewable agricultural worker visa.
This new visa should allow for farmers to:

1. Ensure the legal status of existing workers
2. Recruit new foreign-born workers to their farms
   

Currently, dairies can’t utilize the H-2A program for year-round labor because of regulatory restrictions. If Congress chooses to pursue changes to ag workforce programs through the H-2A program, it must include an option for year-round visas and address other regulatory issues that hinder the ability for agricultural producers to utilize the program.

Edge supported the Farm Workforce Modernization Act in the 116th Congress. While the bill wasn’t perfect, it created a pathway for farmers to retain existing workers and modified the H-2A program to allow dairy farmers to use it in three-year visa terms, among other favorable policies.

Edge opposes mandatory E-Verify on dairy farms without an agricultural workforce visa that addresses the needs for current and future workforce.

Edge supports the limited, existing use of the TN and J-1 visa programs by dairy farms.
TN visas were made possible by the USMCA and are only available to professionals such as veterinarians and nutritionists. As one of the few options producers have, more and more dairies are exploring this route. The J-1 visa program is primarily used to bring foreign-born interns to the U.S., which some of our members have also been using to obtain a legal workforce. We are glad we have these two programs, but they are not the solution and can only be used to provide a small portion of our overall workforce needs.

Edge, which has 900 members in the Midwest, is an advocate for effective federal policies that affect dairy farmers. Edge is one of the top U.S. dairy cooperatives based on milk volume and fulfills federal rules as a verification co-op for farmers who do business with privately owned processing plants.