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By Sen. Russ Ingalls, Chair – Senate Agriculture Committee
As we are heading into our 5th week in the Legislature, I am blessed to chair such a strong committee. There is a balance of thought, sometimes a difference of opinion to which I encourage, but they all respect the institution of the Senate, one another, and more important, the Vermonters that enter our Committee via in person or Zoom. To say I’m proud to lead such a group is understated.
Vermont farmers face more problems than most. There aren’t enough people to consume all the dairy they produce, therefore farmers must rely on far-off markets. We just don’t have the consumer population. The same problem goes for the vegetables, fruits and nuts, beef, pork and poultry, eggs, grains, and maple and so many other products our farms produce.
We can argue about why it’s happening, but the changing weather cannot be denied. It’s another problem farmers must live with and adjust to.
Then there are political and policy hurdles. Farmers are facing advocacy group lawsuits aimed at land use and water quality. They’re wary that once they are required to move in one direction, the goal posts will change and money that the farmers believed was well spent on great intentions could be washed away like the floods we saw in the past few years.
The ill thought out law that bans seeds that contain neonicotinoids has caused great concern throughout our agriculture community. Af first glance it seemed that there was ample time to figure something else out, but the date of the ban is approaching fast. This law puts Vermont on an island of non-importance. Seed companies are not interested in developing any other seeds that have different treatments that 48 other states do not require.
The fact that Vermont is going to require them means nothing to the seed companies. They barely know that the Vermont market exists and certainly wont miss us when we are gone. And to be honest, we have twice as many bee hives as we had 10 years ago, so the notion that this ban protects pollinators was flawed from day on.
No-one cares more about the environment than farmers. It is amazing to hear these people speak. When asked why they do what they do, we hear everything except that they want to make money. They want to survive with the land and themselves as one. To keep doing what they are doing is the most important thing in their lives.
Listening to them leaves me asking, what would they ever do if they weren’t farming? I will fight to the end to make sure they can keep doing it.
So yes, our resilient farmers are making it happen in trying times and circumstances. But what is the problem they tell us over and over? The labor shortage. And the fear of what could happen in the blink of an eye to the workers they have now. Vermont needs a Guest Worker Registry Program.
Vermont farmers are mostly reliant on migrant workers, most here illegally. And before we think that this is going to turn into a political statement, the senators in my committee know that making such an attempt will get shot down as quick as a drone flying over a nudist colony. Both Republicans and Democrats have failed miserably to allow migrants to come here legally to work.
Let me be up front. We need to know who we let into our country. But here is our reality. We have hard working families here working to keep our agriculture industry alive. Without them, our agriculture business would be non-existent.
Vermonters know that they are here. We educate their kids in our schools, we see them when we drive by any farm, we see them in our communities as they shop in our stores. It’s time for our leaders in Washington to stop making Illegal immigration the money source for both parties it has become.
It’s also time for our two Senators and one Representative to quit fighting with the other party and focus on what our Vermont farmers need the most. In fairness to Sen. Peter Welch, he and I had a recent phone conversation about creating a Guest Worker Program for Vermont. And it got even better than that. The next day I proudly watched him repeat almost word for word on the Senate floor of what we discussed. So thank you Senator Welch. Let’s work together to move this idea forward.
To not know who is in our country cannot be allowed. Yes, I believe that we should not have illegal Immigration. But we simply cannot keep these migrants are keeping our Agriculture Industry alive in Vermont living in the shadows, with fears of leaving the farm to go to the grocery store and not returning to their jobs and family, a distinct possibility.
If we had a Guest Worker Program in our state, I could fill 300 jobs in my Senate district alone. Not just on farms but in all of our work force. And maybe even volunteer to help fill the other shortages we face in our fire departments and such. It’s time the politicians in Washington quit using this as a click bait way for them to fill their coffers, and get into a room and don’t come out until this is done. And if you can’t agree on what the Federal Government can do, then allow States to develop their own programs.
I believe that Governor Scott might be able to support such an idea as we have seen his leadership in welcoming refugees to our state with the hopes that they too could fill our jobs.
The author serves as Chair of Senate Agriculture and the Essex District of Vermont.
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Categories: Agriculture, Commentary
Re: “Vermont needs a Guest Worker Registry Program.”
A bit behind the times are we?
H-2A Temporary Agricultural Workers:
“The H-2A program allows U.S. employers or U.S. agents who meet specific regulatory requirements to bring foreign nationals to the United States to fill temporary agricultural jobs. A U.S. employer, a U.S. agent as described in the regulations, or an association of U.S. agricultural producers named as a joint employer, must file Form I-129, Petition for a Nonimmigrant Worker, on a prospective worker’s behalf.”
Please stop with the mission creep. Just follow the laws currently on the books.
H-2A has no designation for Dairy workers, that is the law on the books
R Nelson:
H-2a visas cover all ‘… agricultural labor or services of a temporary or seasonal nature.’ Dairy is as ‘agricultural’ as raising chickens, beef cattle, and vegetables. The operable term defining applicability is the qualification that the jobs are ‘temporary or seasonal nature.’
DAIRY WORKERS: The Public Health Service Act provides the definition of migratory and seasonal agricultural workers for health center grantees, and includes those working in aquaculture and animal production provided the patient meets the guidelines for being a migratory or seasonal worker. The Uniform Data System Manual, the reporting mechanism for all health centers, states “For both [migratory and seasonal] categories of workers, the term agriculture means farming in all its branches as defined by the OMB-developed North American Industry Classification System (NAICS), and includes seasonal workers included in the following codes and all sub-codes within: 111, 112, 1151, and 1152”, removing a previous exclusion of animal productions workers.”
The author of the article is a Senator from Vermont and evidently the chairman of an unnamed committee that he is so proud to serve on, and yet he is so uninformed as to the existing laws…he has to rush out and speak to another, just as uninformed, Senator about proposing a new law. Of course it could be that the existing law is unpalatable due to the paperwork and employment taxes that are involved with hiring a legal workforce. I doubt that many farmers in Vermont that employ illegal farm workers really want to deal with all that if they don’t have to. It would also bring farmers under scrutiny regarding the housing and labor laws. Again…I doubt they would be too happy about that either. And since no one is actually enforcing the laws…. you know…whatever. Regarding the statement that Vermont’s population just isn’t large enough to purchase all that the farmers produce, I will say this….there are more than enough people to make those purchases but a $5.00 tomato at the farmers market is a bit more than most can afford. Everyone I know would love to be able to have farm fresh products but they are just too far out of reach. Maybe if there were lower the prices farmers would sell much more of what they produce. At the very least a senior discount would be nice. Don’t believe me? Go check out a food shelf sometime. There is where your customers are. Oh and then there is the labor shortage we keep hearing about…there is no labor shortage…there is a “getting able bodied people back to work” shortage. The welfare, supplemental income and every other social program all need to be audited. Vermont is known far and wide as the welfare state and we have many who move here because of that fame. We have a group of people sitting at home simply because they do not want to work….but they sure know how to work the system for benefits. Time to get them off the couch and back to work. But I guess my favorite lament is that our farmers are going to be hard pressed to find untreated seeds to plant in their Glyphosate soaked fields. Oh, I know…it is so much better to have them be able to purchase the seeds that are treated with a dangerous chemical so that the cancer causing Glyphosate doesn’t kill their crops…only the untreated weeds. Because, you know, plowing is so bad for the soil. Better to surround homes, schools and businesses with chemical soaked fields and subject entire towns to cancer causing chemicals than damage the soil by plowing. And before all the “how dare you” people start to yell at me for talking against these practices…as a three time cancer survivor, I have been beating this drum for a long time and have been called everything in the book so save your breath. I’ve already heard it. My answer to you is..call me after you experience multiple cancer related surgeries, radiation treatments that burn your skin and the chemo that leaves you exhausted, sick and bald….once you have gone through all of that….then we can talk. Oh, and something to consider before you jump in the rivers this summer..where do you think all those chemicals go when it rains… (And no one tests the river for those specific chemicals because wouldn’t that just open a can of worms.) I know it doesn’t sound like it , but I really don’t want to make a farmer’s life any harder than it is….I just want them to play by the same rules as the rest of us. Hire legal workers, pay your employment taxes like any other small business has to and stop poisoning your customers with dangerous chemicals. As for the rest of us….how about we vote for Senators that actually know what the hell they are doing instead of the ones that just want to get their name on a bill.
Do farm work or lose your unemployment/welfare benefits. Problem solved.
When Pres. Trump was first elected he told Congress to come up with a plan for The Dreamers and he would sign it. But Congress refused and now 8 years later The Dreamers are still living in limbo. I’m sure Gov. Scott and Pres. Trump could work together to come up with a guest worker program for immigrant farm laborers that works for both the farmer and the laborers. I’m sure Pres. Trump does not want to destroy the few remaining farms we have in Vermont. It is time to fix this problem once and for all and stop using the problem as a political football.
Is this argument a little like justifying slavery in a particular state in the South in the 1860s because “if we just emancipate all our slaves, who’s going to pick our cotton and work our fields? Our state’s economy needs these slaves to survive.”
Let’s welcome folks to come here, but legally, just as millions of immigrants the past 150 years did the necessary work to become naturalized US citizens.
Starting with the argument of how our economy will suffer if we don’t allow these workers is a slippery slope which ultimately commodifies these workers and compromises the perfectly fine laws and parameters we already have in place to ensure public safety and excessive burdens on the social economic supports of our communities.
*Edited to:
“…prevent excessive burdens on the social and economic supports of our communities.”
The argument is not at all like justifying slavery. H-2a visa holders are not rounded up, chained and put in the holds of ships, or otherwise forced to work here. This is an absurd analogy.
Two fellows from Brazil with H-2a visas have lived at my house every summer for the last three years while working at a local farm producing vegetables, beef, chicken, eggs, and more. They are paid very well – significantly more than Vermont’s minimum wage. They come here voluntarily. And they work along side local citizens performing the same jobs earning similar wages.
There is one aspect to H-2a employment most people don’t realize… an aspect that benefits the employers more than hiring local workers. Specifically, H-2a workers don’t qualify for over-time (time and half pay or higher) until they work 60 hours in a 7 day week.
None the less, the Brazilians I know earn more money here with H-2a visas in three months than they can working in Brazil for an entire year.
I agree with Russ Ingalls on this. Should’ve been done long ago.
H. Jay,
My point was not about how slaves and illegal immigrants were/are treated nor the circumstances under which they came to the US, but about dehumanizing and commodifying them by viewing them as a means to an economic end. That said, those slaves were dehumanized and commodified as soon as they were sought and kidnapped from their homes in Africa. That is not where I’m making my comparison.
Any time we begin to defend fundamentally immoral and/or illegal behavior and policies by justifying the economic benefit accrued, we have put the intrinsic human dignity of others to the side for the sake of some supposed greater good. This argument is used every day by those who defend abortion by saying we must kill the preborn child to spare her from a life of poverty or from being a burden on the system. Or justifying the torture and murder of the human Guinea pigs of Josef Mengele’s sadistic perverted “medical research” by arguing that it supposedly advanced the cause of science.
Yes, by all means let’s invite and welcome those who are willing to legally obtain work visas and/or do the necessary work to obtain legal US citizenship. But as soon as we put the cart before the horse by arguing from the perspective of economic benefit and “who’s going to mow our lawns, harvest our crops, and nanny our children, we have reduced human beings to a commodity, ultimately dehumanized them, and circumvented the proper and legal channels for public safety and what is truly in the best interest of our communities.
This takes nothing away from the dignity and humility of the hardworking Brazilian men you have compassionately helped and housed. But those men are doing what they do legally, and no one is cheating and lying for them to work here. When cheating and lying and ethical compromise have entered the picture, any moral high ground in the argument is lost, and human beings have become a commodity.
Is he advocating for small, independent farms or Agri-mart? After the years of pushing growth hormones into cows to produce more (breaking them before they were four years old), GMO-laden feed, the cooperative that undercut New England farmers while Wisconsin and California reaped larger market share (see your local markets for product shelf space), it is no wonder why the cheapest of labor is necessary for the profit of shareholders and executives – not for the farmer, their land or their animals. How many farms in Vermont folded under the weight of the almighty Cooperative and the State’s colluding ways? The farmers I know changed up, bailed out or sold out – they had no choice – fold or starve.
You had me right up until you started talking about other jobs. No way. Nope. And on that note…not on farms either. Farming is good work. Both of my kids worked on family farms. No migrant labor. These farms could not compete with mega farms, who can’t…and who have been allowed to decide they won’t… be able to operate without migrant labor. These are the farms that all across America….. crush family farms. Both of those dairy farms that my kids worked on went out of business.
I know a lot of people on disability. People who I think could be working. You let a few people starve to death….. they’ll start rethinking their desire to not work. Immigrant labor drives down hourly rates too. Another reason why people don’t want to work. There is no way, we can find out just how much people are willing to pay for milk, eggs, vegetables, beef etc….. if you keep allowing cheap labor to drive down costs for certain farms. Same goes for grants and subsidies. It unlevels the playing field…. Making it easier for some to compete than others. This has transformed the face of farming all across the nation.
I don’t ever want to hear you mention a temporary worker working as a fireman again.
To your excellent point, Melissa:
Any time we fail to steward God’s creation with genuine compassion, care, and justice—whether it is the British slave trade, the American chattel slave system; the Holocaust; Planned Parenthood and the behemoth abortion industry, which has dehumanized and slaughtered 65 million preborn babies and devastated the lives of countless moms and dads; “sex work”; or Big Pharma, or Big Ag, or Big Tech, which poison people and treat animals inhumanely and the environment irresponsibly—choosing to commodify the precious souls He has created and abuse the resources and creatures He’s blessed us with for the sake of selfish financial profit, we’ve played into the devil’s hand, and it’s a zero-sum game.
https://www.centerformedicalprogress.org/human-capital/documentary-web-series/
https://youtu.be/M2jT7Ek2MNw?si=rkd18FYJTM7ODc-j
when I was young I lived near a huge Apple orchard that hired Jamaicans on a temp. workers visa, they would come for the summer earn money picking Apple’s and return home at the end of the season. they were housed and fed by the orchard and returned year after year to work there. no one in America wants illegal immigration with all the downside of criminals, drugs, violence, plus this costs tax payers billions of dollars for free housing, free spending money, free food, free healthcare, free education, which are own citizens are denied.
To your excellent point, Melissa:
Any time we fail to steward God’s creation with genuine compassion, care, and justice—whether it is the British slave trade, the American chattel slave system; Planned Parenthood and the behemoth abortion industry, which has dehumanized and slaughtered 65 million preborn babies and devastated the lives of countless moms and dads; “sex work”; or Big Pharma, or Big Ag, or Big Tech, which poison people and treat animals inhumanely and the environment irresponsibly—choosing to commodify the precious souls He has created and abuse the resources and creatures He’s blessed us with for the sake of selfish financial profit, we’ve played into the devil’s hand, and it’s a zero-sum game.
https://www.centerformedicalprogress.org/human-capital/
I’m sorry, Russ, but from what you write, it sounds like you have swallowed the same propaganda pill your Progressive colleagues have taken. Sacre blue.
The first few paragraphs of what you write is totally false propaganda. Vermont produces less than 30% of the food Vermonters consume: cost of production compared to factory-scale mega-farms is the problem, not the consumer base. It doesn’t help that the Major City, a few miles to the north, charges almost 300% tariffs on our farm produce. And as far as the WEATHER, you would have to be dumber than a doorknob not to notice the winter we’ve been having this year. A few weeks extra growing season would be massively beneficial to our farmers, as long as they have access to water for crops that isn’t prohibited from use because of stupid legislation (during dry seasons). I’m afraid this recent warming trend is about over, though, and we will most likely be seeing a trend toward colder and snowier winters over the next 20 years. Climate change should be planned for by diversifying crops and installing infrastructure, not raising the price of tractor and transportation fuel.
Nobody is really opposed to migrant farm workers as it stands. There are plenty of young adults from Vermont who need jobs, and many of them might find a career in agriculture just right. We do not need to expand the program(s) beyond what they are.
C’est la vie.