Federal policy update from Washington, D.C.

By Karen Gefvert, director of public affairs

There seems to be never-ending news coming out of Washington, D.C. We are in a Farm Bill year, and there are debt ceiling negotiations, Supreme Court rulings, the introduction of many immigration reform bills, proposals for Federal Milk Marketing Order reforms, appropriations markups and more. Edge continues to work diligently on our federal policy priorities by collaborating with our network of policymakers, members, processors and other organizations. 

Here are a few important topic updates to share:

Immigration reform: In mid-May, the House of Representatives passed H.R. 2, the Secure the Border Act. This legislation includes mandatory electronic verification for agricultural workers with improvements to the agricultural guest visa program. 

While a Democratically-led Senate will not support this version of the legislation, it has spurred conversations on multiple immigration-focused issues. 

Farmers have always been willing to come to the table to talk about an E-verify program, but only if coupled with reform to our current guest visa worker program to create a solution to stabilize the workforce while verifying compliance. 

Edge does not support H.R. 2, as passed by the House. We must have comprehensive reforms for the agriculture workforce, including expansion to a reliable workforce and enforcement. 

We continue to discuss with members of Congress and our agricultural coalition partners the importance of reforms to the agricultural guest visa program. We support reforms to expand the H-2A visa program into a multi-year, renewable agriculture visa program that provides year-round employment for workers, including dairy. An updated visa should also include a component to ensure legal status for all existing workers and a provision to allow the simple recruitment of new foreign-born workers as needed. 

We will continue advocating for our member-driven policy with our elected members of Congress and collaborate with other immigration reform-focused coalition partners.

Farm Bill: The clock continues to tick as the farm bill priority proposal submission deadline draws closer. While there is never a deadline for a good idea, the committee staff must get started with a draft bill. There is mixed feedback regarding the timing of a farm bill in 2023 or an extension. Either way, the Edge team continues to advance our farm bill priorities with members of Congress. 

Edge has been working with member offices across our footprint and on the agriculture committees to introduce the concept of our milk pricing reform priorities. Working with office staff to build a baseline understanding of Edge’s two-pronged approach to provide regional flexibility while establishing a standard contracting principle set between farmers and processors has been robust. 

The Edge team has worked with an attorney to write draft legislation to support the milk pricing reform priorities to work toward introduction with several of our congressional champions. That process continues to evolve, and we will navigate the timelines, questions and politics as we proceed toward introduction. 

Federal Milk Marketing Order Reform: Over the last three months, several groups have submitted proposals requesting a Federal Order Hearing on various aspects of the Federal Orders.  

One proposal requested a narrow hearing focused on updates to make allowances. Another proposal was more comprehensive in scope and addressed increasing make allowances, discontinuing barrel cheese in the protein price formula, returning to the “higher of” Class I mover, an update to certain milk component factors within the milk price formulas and an update to the Class I differential pricing surface. 

Edge stands ready to support meaningful change within the Federal Milk Marketing Orders. Our goal is to build more market certainty for our members. To accomplish Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack’s request for unity within federal milk pricing reform, we believe a hearing must be comprehensive in scope and provide each order with renewed relevance. 

Process, timing and inclusion of ideas are key to providing value to farmers across all orders. Pursuing legislation to provide each order with more options should be our primary focus. Edge supports a comprehensive hearing once a farm bill has been passed and we have the clear rules of the game before we proceed into a costly, time-consuming and resource-heavy hearing.