Chile's blues

Harkin rankled

Just sliding across my inbox, from the office of Sen. Tom Harkin:

Senator Tom Harkin (D-IA) today issued the following comment after President Bush explicitly threatened o veto the farm bill during the swearing in ceremony of Agriculture Secretary Ed Schafer. Harkin is Chairman of the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry and Chair of the conference committee on the farm bill.

“For President Bush to continue to take a hard line and threaten to veto a farm bill is unproductive and against the bipartisan spirit that made this bill a reality and that carried it through the Senate with one of the largest votes in the history of farm bills. This measure is critical for our farming families and rural communities in Iowa and across this country, so I urge the president to back away from this position and instead work with farm bill negotiators to come up with a bill he can sign. The Senate farm bill is a good, strong measure that balances spending with revenues raised by closing tax loopholes and ending tax abuses – not by raising taxes – as the President has suggested.”

H2A program changes

What will proposed H2A reforms accomplish? Here is a summary from Florida Citrus Mutual:

Applications - Eliminate the duplication of activities currently performed by the State WorkForce agencies (SWAs) and the Dept’s Employment and Training Admin (ETA). Employers would file their H-2A applications directly with DOL instead of filing simultaneously with both the SWA and DOL.

Housing inspections – Increase the amount of time states have to conduct required housing inspections in response to delays often caused by SWAs overwhelmed by employer requests for pre-certification housing inspections. This reform creates consistency between the housing inspection process under H-2A and the housing inspection process under the Migrant and Seasonal Workers Protection Act, which protects U.S. farm workers.

Wage Rate – Revise the methodology for determining the Adverse Effect Wage Rate to more accurately measure market-based wages by occupation

To view the entire proposed rule visit http://www.doleta.gov/pdf/DOL_H2A_NPRM_final_020508.pdf

Look for coverage in The Packer and in this space about changes to the H2A program.

Here is the AP story about the changes.

USDA Deputy Secretary Chuck Conner Regarding H-2A Farm Worker Program Revisions said this in a statement today:

"The changes we are proposing today will go a long way towards ensuring that America's farmers will have a stable, legal workforce they can count on at harvest time. Because farmers are tied to the land and the natural cycles of growth and harvest, their need for labor is urgent and non-negotiable. This is particularly true of the fruit and vegetable growers who employ so many of our farm workers. A crop that rots in the field-for want of enough hands to pick it-can put a farmer out of business pretty fast.

Unfortunately, those farmers who do participate in the current H-2A program and meet all of its requirements still run the risk that because of bureaucratic delays beyond their control, they won't have a legal workforce in place when they need it. We estimate that our agricultural work force numbers about 1.2 million at its seasonal peak in July.

But last year, agricultural employers hired only about 75,000 farm workers through the H-2A program. We believe between 50 and 70 percent of the agricultural work force is in the country illegally. That translates into between 600,000 and 800,000 people. At the upper end of that range, the H-2A program is legalizing fewer than 10 percent of eligible workers. And that is simply not acceptable.

The changes will streamline and simplify the program. Yet they will also provide new protections to U.S. workers by assuring them wider opportunities to learn about farm labor jobs that are available in their area.

By utilizing the Department of Labor's Occupations Employment Survey data we will get more graduated and finely tuned wage data. The data will be linked to specific job categories and descriptions and should allow us to bring H-2A wage rates much closer to actual prevailing wages.

I also believe farmers will welcome the new attestation approach to certifying their need for foreign workers. We are also requiring them to keep records on hand for five years to prove that they did in fact comply with all the requirements of the law. We are making them subject to audits to confirm that they have in fact been doing the right thing.

What we are offering them is an opportunity to get their hiring back inside the law-without compromising their business needs. And we are offering farm workers who are now illegal the chance to get inside the law as well and take advantage of the protections and certainty it allows. I believe both groups have a great deal to gain here and will seize this opportunity. The nation as a whole will benefit when they do."

Fruit Logistica and other travel

Editor Lance Jungmeyer and News Editor Chris Koger are winging their way to Germany for the Fruit Logistica this week, while The Packer's David Mitchell is headed to Washington, D.C. tomorrow for the USDA fruit and vegetable industry advisory committee meeting. Hopefully, Lance may be able to post a couple of times from Germany. Meanwhile, I'm planning to head out to Russia on Saturday to explore the growing market there for U.S. produce. If any readers have any industry insights relative to Moscow and St. Petersburg, feel free to email me at tkarst@thepacker.com.

COOL fee planned for retailers

If you thought retailers loved COOL before, wait till you see this...


Here is the link to the USDA summary of the fiscal year 2009 budget. Autumn Veazey of United Fresh passed this info along yesterday, and said the association is talking with AMS and trying to find out more about this troubling prospect.

From page 70 of the USDA budget summary is this paragraph.

As part of the 2009 budget request, AMS will propose an amendment to the authorizing legislation for Country of Origin Labeling (COOL) that will allow the program to collect, retain, and invest user fees to fund random compliance reviews. The estimated user fee collections for COOL compliance monitoring and enforcement, is approximately $10 million. In FY 2009, COOL will be mandatory for a wider range of commodities than fish and shellfish that are currently subject to COOL requirements.


Here is additional elaboration on the issue provided to United by an official within USDA AMS:

For FY 2009, when COOL becomes mandatory for all covered commodities, AMS will use the funding currently provided through annual appropriations ($1.1 million) to finance COOL regulatory and oversight activities, including rulemaking, outreach, and education. However, at this level of funding, the program will be unable to conduct surveillance audits to monitor compliance with labeling requirements. To finance these monitoring and enforcement-related activities, USDA proposes to collect mandatory user fees from retailers. This proposal requires an amendment to authorizing legislation that would allow the program to collect and retain user fees for this purpose in a no-year account with investment authority. AMS proposes to accomplish periodic random surveillance audits through a cooperative Federal/ State network. The proposed fees would finance surveillance audits on all covered commodities (meat; perishable fruits, vegetables, and specialty commodities; peanuts; fish and shellfish) at retail establishments, provide training for Federal and State employees on enforcement responsibilities, and develop and maintain an automated web-based data entry and tracking system for records management and violation follow-up, as well as ten additional Federal employees to carry out the expanded program and conduct trace-back audits. The estimated cost increase is $9.6 million for surveillance and enforcement of all covered commodities, which would equal approximately $259 for each of an estimated 37,000 retail locations.