Mediaboss Marketing

The strain of the labor pool facing agriculture is evident, especially with help wanted signs everywhere. Even as technology becomes a greater part of agriculture, much of dairy farming remains labor-intensive. Earlier this week at the International Dairy Foods Association (IDFA) Dairy Forum in Palm Springs, Calif., its President and CEO, Michael Dykes made the prediction that Congress will pass immigration reform in the next five years.

Labor issues are multifaceted, and Dykes noted that the U.S. has the lowest population growth rate in history over the last decade. More people [are] dying, and we have fewer people being born in the developing world, he stated. We have a people issue. Sustainability, health and wellness with research, many of these things we can fix with money, but we cant create more people.

Chief Operating Officer with Agri-Placement Services, Luis Carcamo, concurs with Dykes. These are exactly the reasons many of us in the dairy sector have been citing every time we submit comments to a government agency or when we have the opportunity to plead our case to staffers in Capitol Hill, he states.

Dykes shared with the IDFA audience that, were going to have to have people that are working, which means were going to need a system of legal immigration.

He also continued stating that he does not think Senate Minority Leader, Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., or Sen Joe Manchin, D-W. Va., will deliver immigration reform, but is optimistic that the next generation of politicians will step up.

While Agri-Placement Services, an employer placement company that serves dairy farms in 16 different states, doesnt share quite the optimism that Dykes does on seeing a comprehensive immigration reform. I think the best chance we had was with the Farm Workforce Modernization Act and that doesnt seem to be coming back to life, Carcamo remarks.

Future Labor Advice

Carcamo says that if he has his way, he would find an opportunity to amend the seasonality requirements for H-2A visas, which would allow dairy farmers and others working in year-round sectors to supplement their domestic workforce.

Agri-Placement Services has a separate entity that serves as an H-2A Labor Contractor and Carcamo notes it has gone very well. Were currently working directly with the Ministry of Labor from Barbados to source the workers and we employ them on concord grape farms in western New York, he shared. Since we're acting as a labor contractor and therefore, we are the employer, we take care of all paperwork and logistics. All the producers need to do is tell us when and where they need the workers. I wish we could do the same for dairy.

National Milk Producers Federation (NMPF) strongly supports efforts to pass agriculture labor reform that provides permanent legal status to current workers and their families and gives dairy farmers access to a workable guestworker program.

With acute labor shortages in rural areas and no guestworker program available that works for the year-round dairy industry, dairy farmers are in a workforce crisis. Dairy producers typically offer higher wages and benefits than many other parts of the ag sector. But many still struggle to find employees because the domestic workers just arent there, making immigrant workers increasingly important to farmer success, Claudia Larson, senior director of government relations with NMPF says. A recent study estimates that immigrant labor accounts for over half of the dairy workforce and nearly 80 percent of the U.S. milk supply. A real solution to dairys workforce challenges must both provide legal status to current employees and their families, and it also needs to give dairy farmers access to a workable guestworker program.

The 2015 study by Texas A&M AgriLife Research, The Economic Impact of Immigrant Labor on U.S. Dairy Farms, shared that if the U.S. dairy industry lost its foreign-born workforce, it would nearly double retail milk price and cost the total U.S. economy more than $32 billion.

Future Leaders Needed

Carcamo also notes the need to keep engaging with elected officials to find a way to expand H-2A. Plus we need to keep working with sending countries to develop new paradigms of circular labor mobility.

Dykes echoed the same message to the IDFA Dairy Forum and challenged his membership, stating, You guys are going to lead this. Youre going to step up. Youre going to be bold, and youre going to do the things that you know are in the best interest of this industry.

See more here:
Predictions for the Future of Immigration Reform - Dairy Herd Management