North Carolina's Ag Commissioner, Steve Troxler has been watching closely the developments in near by states of Georgia and Alabama and their immigrant labor issues. Crops in Georgia actually went unharvested and were left to rot in the fields due to the lack of labor to harvest them. Realistically, there's no way to meet that demand with American workers alone.
Troxler says that current federal guest worker programs H2A and H2B are broken. The US Department of Labor's implemntation of these programs has made them increasingly less workable.
Troxler's fellow state ag commissioners and secretaries from across the country spent a good deal of time talking about this topic at their annual meeting last month. They came up with a list of things they'd like to see in a new program, going on to say there must be some changes to make it more workable and affordable for farmers.
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