A couple of weeks ago, I attended the Consumer Federation of America’s 2013 Food Policy Conference. I’ve attended this meeting before and always came away with some valuable information and insights to share with colleagues and members. This year’s program addressed a number of key issues ranging from the Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA), food waste, immigration reform, and nutrition topics. Here’s a recap of what I heard and learned:

• On FSMA, FDA’s Deputy Commissioner for Foods and Veterinary Medicine Mike Taylor shared his thoughts on FSMA implementation with Food Safety News’ Helena Bottemiller. They discussed a variety of areas including the reworking of produce exemptions (FDA seeking industry comment on these), resource constraints (FDA considering fees to fill funding gaps, though industry is opposed to this tactic), and OMB deletions of environmental and product testing from the proposed rules (FDA seeks expertise on these issues and anticipates them being in the final rules).
• On nutrition labeling, Taylor said final menu labeling rules should be published by the end of the year, while front-of-the-pack labeling rules are being considered by the agency along with a proposed rule to update the Nutrition Facts label (expected in 2014).
• With regard to consumer trends, Kate Weigle from Edelman shared that 79 percent of consumers said their budget reflects their food purchasing decisions; 68 percent believe healthful foods are too expensive. Also, 95 percent of men and 98 percent of women think about the nutrients meals provide their family. Seventy-two percent of men and 73 percent of women try to purchase food raised or grown locally.
• On kids and branded food items, a representative from the Rudd Center at Yale University said that the effect of a licensed character on food does have an impact. Their child research revealed that kids think branded food tastes better (even though it was the exact same as non-branded food).
• Concerning food waste, an Environmental Protection Agency representative discussed the agency’s Food Recovery Hierarchy, with a focus on the top two tiers (source reduction and donation). The Food Marketing Institute shared that consumer misunderstanding of sell-by/use-by dates is a key contributing factor to food waste, followed by the Natural Resources Defense Council stating that, in the United Kingdom, one retailer is printing storage and handling information on their produce department bags.
• The immigration session was interesting (especially in light of what was happening on Capitol Hill that day). Call me biased, but the standout panelist was Maureen Torrey of Torrey Farms. Her emotional story of dealing with farm labor issues and I-9 audits and enforcement measures held the audience’s attention until she had finished – which was met with a well-deserved round of applause.

In all, it was a very informative meeting and if you’d like additional information on any of the items above, please feel free to connect with me on PMA Xchange.

Last week, the U.S. Senate introduced the Border Security, Economic Opportunity, and Immigration Modernization Act of 2013, S. 744. This bill addresses key issues of importance to the produce industry, including allowing farm workers currently in the country illegally to earn legal U.S. residency by fulfilling a future work requirement in agriculture, among other conditions, and creating a new guest worker program specifically for the agriculture sector.

In a press statement, PMA President and CEO Bryan Silbermann said: “After more than a decade of work by our industry, we welcome immigration reform legislation from the U.S. Senate’s ‘gang of eight.’ Thanks to the efforts of Senators Feinstein, Rubio, Hatch, and Bennet, and the round-the-clock work of industry leaders including Tom Nassif, president and CEO of Western Growers, Chuck Conner, president & CEO of National Council of Farmer Cooperatives, and PMA board member Mike Stuart, president of Florida Fruit and Vegetable Association, the Senate legislation addresses the critical workforce needs of American agriculture, now and into the future.

“That said, we aren’t quite ready to declare the work is done. On behalf of our members, PMA will continue to work through the Agriculture Coalition for Immigration Reform, of which we are an executive committee member, and the Agricultural Workforce Coalition.”

The bill’s introduction has generated significant media coverage, including this Wall Street Journal article.

We will be providing more details about S. 744 to our members soon, including how to use our online advocacy system – which takes less than three minutes to send a letter to Congressional leaders on this important farm labor issue.

The U.S. Supreme Court’s recent 5-3 decision about an Arizona immigration law returns the spotlight to federal immigration reform as it struck down most provisions of the state-level law. A federal solution that provides for sufficient labor to plant, harvest, pack, and ship specialty crops has long been embodied in AgJOBS (the Agricultural Job Opportunities, Benefits, and Security Act), which PMA and the specialty crop industry have supported. The Agriculture Coalition for Immigration Reform (of which we’re a member) details some of the benefits of reform through AgJOBS, including preserving U.S. farms, saving jobs, impact on food quality and safety, border security, and solving the farm labor crisis.

The media is full of stories about this crisis, including crops rotting in the fields for lack of harvest labor, growers’ choices to plant crops that are not labor-intense (i.e. not fresh fruits and vegetables), impacts on rural communities and other businesses, decisions to move production outside the United States, and more. PMA members throughout the supply chain are directly affected by this, as are consumers.

It’s an election year, and conventional wisdom says nothing will happen before the trip to the polls in November. The realities of political expediency are juxtaposed with the realities of fresh produce businesses. In the first case, there is concern that action will jeopardize a legislator’s future. In the second, it is inaction that puts our industry in jeopardy.

Even if reform is unlikely in the near term, keep talking to your legislators about the issue, about its impact on your business and the businesses and community your company support. Just because it’s unpopular right now doesn’t mean it’s unimportant.

Recently the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Economic Research Service released “The Potential Impact of Changes in Immigration Policy on U.S. Agriculture and the Market for Hired Farm Labor,” a simulation analysis that evaluated how changes in the supply of foreign-born labor might affect all sectors of the economy, including agriculture. In it, two scenarios were considered: an increase in the number of temporary nonimmigrant, foreign-born farmworkers (such as those admitted under the H-2A Temporary Agricultural Program) and a decrease in the number of unauthorized workers in all sectors of the economy.

The simulation found the expanded employment of temporary nonimmigrant agricultural workers would lead to a long-run relative increase in agricultural output and exports. These increases were generally larger in labor-intensive sectors, such as fruits, tree nuts, vegetables, and nursery products. By year 15 of the increased farm labor supply scenario, these four sectors experience a 1.1 to 2 percent increase in output and a 1.7 to 3.2 percent increase in exports, relative to the base forecast.

By contrast, a large reduction in the number of unauthorized workers in all sectors of the U.S. economy would lead to a long-run reduction in output and exports in both agriculture and the broader economy, relative to forecasted levels with no policy-induced change in unauthorized labor supply. Fruits, tree nuts, vegetables, and nursery production are again among the most affected sectors, with long-run relative declines from 2 to 5.4 percent in output and from 2.5 to 9.3 percent in exports. Real agricultural wages would rise, on average, from 3.9 to 9.9 percent in the long run, relative to the forecasted wage with no policy-induced labor supply reduction.

This report helps to underscore the future economic challenges facing our industry unless legislative policy changes are on their way. You might recall that last year, the National Council of Agricultural Employers issued a report which documented the shortcomings of the existing H-2A program. In that study, user growers reported more than $300 million in economic loss in 2010 due to failure of the program to provide the workers needed, when they are needed, and 72 percent of growers reported that workers arrived after the date of need, on average 22 days after they were needed.

In related news, many farmers are facing labor shortages; here’s a look at some recent media on this issue:

• Farmers scrambling to find harvest labor (San Francisco Chronicle, May 27)
• Guest worker idea stuck in web of politics (Los Angeles Times, May 27)
• Bring farmworkers’ plight into the sunlight (Los Angeles Times, May 30)
• Growers in California’s Central Valley struggle to cope with farmworker shortage (Sacramento Bee, June 3)

In this election year, it remains uncertain if any action will be taken to give our industry some labor relief. However, your most powerful tool in this debate is your voice as a constituent. If you or your supply chain partners are feeling the adverse effects from not having enough labor to harvest and get products to market, be sure to let your Congressional delegation know when they’re out on the campaign trail this summer and fall.

Even though almost everyone believes nothing will happen on comprehensive immigration reform in this election year, our industry continues to suffer from lack of labor. The shortage eased a tiny bit during the recession, but workers who turned to harvest fresh fruits and vegetables turned away just as quickly as they discovered the skills and working conditions were less than appealing. This happened even when prisoners were sent to work the fields.

I recently attended the Consumer Federation of America’s Food Policy Conference, where immigration reform was on the program. The May 17 session included PMA director Maureen Torrey of Torrey Farms, a farm labor representative, a Food and Commercial Workers Union rep, and someone from USDA’s Economic Research. Though these groups are not always singing “kumbaya,” they fully agreed that the United States needs immigration reform sooner rather than later. Attendees at the session were surprised at the consensus among these diverse groups and appeared unaware of the severity of the problem.

And here are just a few examples from the news recently:

• “Larsen Farms of Pasco (WA) stopped harvesting (asparagus) about a week ago (late April) because they — along with other Tri-City area farmers — couldn’t find enough workers this year to cut asparagus.” (The Tri-city Herald, April 26)
• State laws imperil availability, acreage, farms. Georgia lost $140 million. “A lot of the smaller growers have elected not to plant as many crops or to plant any crops.…(T)hat just anybody can come do this job is also a misnomer. We consider these people skilled workers because they are pretty much professional harvesters, and they’re even skilled to particular crops. “(W)e have them (local, U.S. workers) come out here, but they usually don’t stay. They don’t stay more than a day or two, and they’re off to find another job.” (NPR Talk of the Nation, April 30)
• Alabama passed new laws as well, and growers’ experience with labor shortages last year have caused some to plant fewer acres of labor-intense produce crops and/or to switch to other crops that can be mechanically harvested. “On nearby Chandler Mountain, another prime farming area, Jimmy Miller said he cut back on produce because of possible labor shortages and instead planted more cotton and peanuts, which can both be harvested by big machines called combines that require minimal labor.” (Fox News Latino, May 13)

Political expediency here is not helping our industry, and we must be sure legislators know that the lack of resolution on immigration reform is having a daily and detrimental impact on our industry.

Last week prior to a House Judiciary Committee hearing on immigration and farm labor, the Agriculture Coalition for Immigration Reform (of which PMA is a member) submitted a statement calling on committee leadership to consider Rep. Dan Lungren’s proposal – which we’ve talked about previously here on the blog.

In that statement, ACIR cited research conducted by the National Council of Agricultural Employers which documents the shortcomings of the existing H-2A program. (Note: The full NCAE report will be available in October.) The research was conducted by Washington State University and was overseen by Carol House, the former deputy administrator of USDA’s National Agricultural Statistics Service who was responsible for most of NASS’ statistical products, including the Census on Agriculture. The NCAE study found that:

• User growers reported more than $300 million in economic loss in 2010 due to failure of the program to provide the workers needed, when they are needed.
• Seventy-two percent of growers reported that workers arrived after the date of need, on average 22 days after they were needed.
• The number of grower appeals of arbitrary denials has skyrocketed.
• The program places enormous emphasis on the recruitment and hiring of U.S. worker referrals; yet, these referrals produce few workers.
• Sixty-eight percent of US worker referrals never accepted a job, 7 percent accepted a job but never began work, 20 percent began work but did not work through the contract period, and only 5 percent worked through the contract.
• More than half of users reported contacting their Members of Congress to seek assistance.

Both NCAE’s report and our own economic impact study provide credible data points that show the U.S. agriculture industry’s labor needs (specifically, access to a legal and stable workforce) and how our industry contributes to the nation’s overall economy: total employment impact, including direct and “ripple effect” jobs, of more than 2.7 million jobs and total economic reach and impact of more than $554 billion.

Yet, perhaps the most powerful tool in this debate is your voice as a constituent. If you or your supply chain partners are feeling the adverse effects from not having enough labor to harvest and get products to market, visit the PMA Advocacy Action Center to contact Congress on this critical issue.

Last Wednesday, I had the opportunity to join PMA member Joel Bedol, chief operating officer from Sy Katz Produce, Lin Schmale from the Society of American Florists, and Bert Lemkes, co-owner of Van Wingerden International (a PMA and SAF member) to discuss E-verify and U.S. agriculture’s labor needs with members of the North Carolina Congressional delegation. We also met with Representative Fred Upton of the sixth district of Michigan.

The lobby day, which also included members of the Agriculture Coalition for Immigration Reform, National Council of Agricultural Employers, and others, had coalesced around the Florida Fruit and Vegetable Association Board meeting in Washington, DC.

As you know, House Judiciary Committee Chairman Lamar Smith has introduced an E-verify bill that would mandate the use of E-Verify to confirm the eligibility of workers by all employers. This bill, as it stands now, does not fully take into consideration the unique farm labor needs faced by fruit and vegetable growers, nurseries, and other U.S. agriculture sectors.

However, Representative Dan Lungren (who also serves on the Judiciary Committee) is finalizing an amendment to E-verify that would create a more flexible and market-based agricultural worker program that would not affect the current H-2A program in any way and would create a new non-immigrant visa program. Though not a perfect fix, it does begin to address agriculture’s needs.

During our meetings, we shared our industry’s concern with an “E-verify only” approach and highlighted the pending Lungren’s amendment with Congressional staffers. We also noted that what is currently happening to Georgia agriculture (labor shortages as high as 30 to 50 percent and projected losses of $300 million by growers and producers) is an ominous sign of things to come if our industry’s needs are not addressed.

While it was a very full day of meetings, I got the general sense that the offices we met with understood our plight and some pledged their support to help us obtain the workable program agriculture desperately needs. Both Pete and Joel did an excellent job in bringing the realities and implications of what “E-verify only” enforcement measures would do to their businesses and communities, which I believe resonated with the staffers. To supplement their stories, I provided copies of PMA’s fresh produce and floral economic impact studies – including state and district profiles – to underscore the importance of our industries to the overall U.S. economy.

In the coming weeks, we’ll keep you updated on the latest news surrounding this important issue and how you can get involved.

Last week USDA’s Economic Research Service released a report on labor and the produce industry. The authors, ERS ag economist Linda Calvin and University of California – Davis professor Philip Martin, looked at case studies, mechanization, supply chain efficiency options and more. Recognizing that labor is not a one-size-fits-all proposition, the authors examined issues related to several key produce commodities: Washington fresh-market apples, Florida processing oranges, California fresh-market oranges and strawberries, raisins, fresh-market asparagus, and lettuce. The report also offers statistics on labor, acreage planted, per-capita consumption, imports, and more.

The insights are best when taken in context of the full report – so I encourage you to take a look at it. The authors found three major adjustments to rising labor costs based on their case studies:

• Some crops have adopted mechanized harvesting, and that would increase if wages rise. Though they review some processed crops (raisins, and Florida oranges) they also note the mechanization advances in baby lettuces.
• Growers of unmechanized commodities that face import pressures as well will likely lose more market share as labor costs rise. And those that face stiff competition in export markets also may lose market share.
• For growers of unmechanized crops that do not face import pressures likely will provide workers with labor aids to increase productivity, and they may also pursue mechanization.

The report does discuss the quality issues around mechanical harvesting, cost of labor in the United States compared to other countries, and statistics about undocumented workers.

Labor is a huge input cost for our industry and a direct influencer of product quality. PMA supports the AgJOBS proposal as a way to improve the labor situation in the United States. For more, visit the immigration reform section of the PMA website.

With the U.S. Congress now back in session, there are a number of legislative proposals (such as food safety) that are on an already crowded docket. Another bill that needs our industry’s attention is the Agricultural Job Opportunity, Benefits, and Security Act of 2009 (S. 1038 and H.R. 2414).

We’ve talked about AgJOBS here on Field to Fork before. In short, the reform measures put forth in AgJOBS will give our industry access to the guest workers it needs so that fresh fruits and vegetables can be harvested, packaged, and shipped in a timely manner. Without a dependable and legal workforce, U.S. production of fruits, vegetables, plants, meat, and milk will likely move beyond our borders as time goes on.

Right now, the fresh produce industry is one of many sectors of U.S. agriculture that is making its voice heard on AgJOBS. To get involved in grassroots advocacy on this critical bill, visit the PMA Advocacy Action Center. Using the action center takes less than 3 minutes and makes a difference on Capitol Hill. Write today!

Here on Field to Fork on Friday I highlighted the USDA aspects of the Washington, DC meetings PMA Chairman of the Board Bill Schuler, PMA’s Washington representative Tom O’Brien and I had recently. Today I’ll update you on our Congressional visits.

PMA Chairman Bill Schuler, Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), PMA President Bryan Silbermann, and United Farm Workers of America President Arturo Rodriguez at a May 12 luncheon to show industry and labor support for AgJOBS.

During a luncheon held in her honor organized by Tom O’Brien and our association allies (ANLA, SAF, United Fresh, and Western Growers), Bill and I met with Senator Dianne Feinstein (Calif.). We thanked her for her continued leadership on the AgJOBS immigration reform proposal and discussed food safety and the Center for Produce Safety – for which the Senator had helped secure funding.

(Note: Following the PMA Board of Directors meeting in Tucson recently – held against the backdrop of the controversial Arizona immigration law – it is clear that the AgJOBS proposal is absolutely critical to the sustainability of the U.S. food supply.)

Bill and the Senator talked about immigration reform, and he noted the support and unity for AgJOBS represented by the farmworker (United Farm Workers President Arturo Rodriguez sat directly across from us), association, and business communities among the luncheon guests.

After lunch, Bill, Tom and I met with Keith Jones, staff director of the House Agriculture Committee’s Horticulture and Organic Agriculture Subcommittee. PMA has a longstanding relationship with Keith, and we were pleased to bring him up to speed on the latest food safety issues.

Staying with the House Ag Committee, we met Representative Jean Schmidt (2nd-OH) and her staff. Schmidt, who is the Ranking Minority Member on Subcommittee on Horticulture and Organic Agriculture, was interested in learning more about industry steps to enhance food safety. After updating her on industry food safety practices, we shared the specific produce industry economic impact district data from PMA’s benchmark study. We also used the economic impact data when we met with Representative Geoff Davis (4th-KY), who serves the district in which Castellini Company is based. During that meeting, Bill underscored the importance of immigration reform and how Castellini’s 1,500 employees in the district would be adversely affected if reform measures are not enacted to provide a sustainable source of farm labor. This has been a consistent message from PMA’s buyer members: AgJOBS is more than just about farm workers, it’s about the entire supply chain.

Looking back after a very busy two days, the importance of bringing industry knowledge and real-world experience to our legislative and regulatory partners has never been more important. Many thanks to Bill for taking time out of a hectic schedule to share his insights on the Hill and at USDA.