Christmas Dinner Will Be More Expensive if the Senate Doesn’t Act Now

By Congressman Mike Simpson

Washington, D.C. – “As the year comes to an end, Idaho families keep telling me how weary they are of inflation and food bills that keep going up.  It seems that every time we go to the grocery store, the price of milk, orange juice, and other staples is higher than it was the last time we were there.  But Idaho farmers know that worse things will come in the new year if we don’t do something quickly to prevent significant labor cost increases for those who put food on our tables.  Agriculture faces a growing workforce crisis, and if Congress doesn’t act, all Americans will feel the painful impact. 

“Last month, the Department of Agriculture released data gathered in its quarterly Farm Labor Survey.  The Department of Labor uses this data to determine mandatory wages under the H-2A temporary visa program, which farmers use to find seasonal farm workers.  According to this year’s data, farmers will face an unprecedented and significant increase in labor costs for 2023.  This comes at a time when Idaho’s farmers already struggle with higher input costs and significant labor shortages.  As production costs get higher and higher, more farms risk going out of business.  And if we think record inflation has punished Americans’ pocketbooks, a failure to solve this issue will only bring more pain at the grocery store.

“Time for debating this issue has run out, but luckily the pieces are already in place to solve the problem.  For several years, I’ve worked with a coalition of Idaho producers and others to find a legislative solution to the critical workforce shortage that is crippling the American agriculture industry.  The product of this collaborative work is the Farm Workforce Modernization Act (FWMA), which passed the House with bipartisan support last year. This bill offers comprehensive solutions to the complex workforce problems facing agriculture.  It reforms the costly and cumbersome H-2A guestworker program to ensure that farmers can get the workers they need.  This includes opening the program to non-seasonal agriculture work, like dairy, so that dairy producers can find the workers they need to milk their cows every day, regardless of the season.  It tackles the long-standing challenge of providing a stable, legal agriculture workforce by bringing the millions of undocumented farm workers in the U.S. out from the shadows of our immigration system so they can get right with the law.  And, especially important at this moment, it provides a federal legislative fix to immediately stabilize agriculture wages.

“Because immigration has become such a hot-button issue in this country, many politicians refuse to tackle these challenges out of fear of political fall-out.  This is irresponsible and unacceptable. Make no mistake: we must do something to address the border crisis in this country, and I have been a strong advocate for securing our borders since I was elected to Congress.  But this is not a border security problem; it is a food supply issue, and it is quickly becoming a huge crisis.  The American people want their elected officials to have the political courage to tackle these problems, not just hone their political brands at the expense of making needed change.  In crafting the FWMA, we’ve done the hard work of listening to stakeholders and hammering out common-sense solutions to these challenges.  By crafting a thoughtful compromise, we’ve found a solution that has the support of over 250 agriculture industry groups.  Now the Senate just needs to act by passing the FWMA.  Doing so would provide needed stability for American agriculture, give economic relief to American families, and serve as a model for long-overdue larger immigration reforms for which the American people have been calling for decades.”

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