By Gary Joiner

There’s a labor shortage on America’s farms.

Many growers who need workers to plant, tend and harvest crops can’t find local residents to fill the jobs. They’re simply not interested. Maybe the work is too hard? Too demanding? Or it could be the stigma associated with farm work. The are other options that are easier for most.

So farmers in Texas and across the country turn to foreign farmworkers. It’s called the H-2A program. It provides access to a stable and legal workforce when the program works properly.

By Mike Barnett

“A farmer should never have to destroy a crop due to the lack of an adequate labor force.”

Attribute that statement to American Farm Bureau Federation (AFBF) President Bob Stallman. It is a thought echoed throughout Texas and the nation as food spoils in the field because Congress is unwilling to address labor shortages in agriculture.

By Gene Hall

Here I am, trying to communicate complex ideas about the science of agriculture, navigating a broken political system and looking for serious people to debate in a serious way. Then, turn a rhetorical corner, start making progress, and you are bludgeoned with the deadly “one-word argument.”

I’d really like some help here. Looking for answers on immigration reform? NO! #AMNESTY!–in all caps shouting. Start laying out the overwhelming evidence supporting the safety and environmental benefits of biotechnology (GMOs) in food and you get–#MONSANTO!–as if that settled the argument.

By Gene Hall

I am a big fan of Dr. Thomas Sowell, a free market economist, except when he starts talking about agricultural labor and immigration reform.

Dr. Sowell’s support of the free market is something I appreciate most of the time. His latest article, however, challenging a “need” for workers in agriculture, has missed the target. He wrote that we don’t need immigration reform and a guest worker program for agriculture. In his opinion, paying more for labor will get you plenty of American workers.

By Kenneth Dierschke
Texas Farm Bureau President

Immigration is the poster case for the dysfunction that grips our federal government.  A former Texas governor said not long ago that “family values don’t stop at the Rio Grande,” and that as long as “moms and dads in Mexico couldn’t feed their children in their own country,” they would come to the U.S.  It will take decisive action to stop the flow of illegal immigration and decisive action is something that we can’t seem to manage.

By Gene Hall

Last week I was in Washington, D.C., and had the pleasure of interviewing U.S. Representative John Carter, who represents the 31^st District of Texas. Congressman Carter, along with fellow Texas Congressman Sam Johnson, is working hard on the U.S. House version of an immigration reform bill for our country.

It takes some Texas-sized courage to stick your neck out on a heated issue like immigration reform in Congress. For agriculture, though, a legal guest worker program is the difference between harvested crops and lost opportunity. No workers in the field… No crops from the field… No food for the people.