It ain't me

In the occassional wash of consumer and press criticism about farm subsidies, fresh produce growers suffer from the largess of their program crop brethren, notes Craig Regelbrugge, senior director of government relations for the American Nursery and Landscape Association, Washington, D.C., and spokesman for the Agriculture Coalition for Immigration Reform.
Regelbrugge said some in the public have misconceptions and misinformation about specialty crop growers. The myth is that specialty crop growers are receiving subsidies from the government at one moment and the next they are scheming for cheap imported labor.
“The public thinks at one moment (growers) are getting all the government subsidies and then getting all this agricultural labor to be released,” he said.
In truth, fruit and vegetable growers – representing the biggest segment of growers who need agricultural labor - don’t get any subsidies and they are hurting for labor, too.

As an aside, Regelbrugge told me earlier today he believes the Senate hold together its coalition to preserve comprehensive immigration reform. Too many people have too much invested in this issue to let it simply die, he said. We shall see.