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Dear President-elect Trump, Protect Our Produce
The Protect Our Produce Coalition is calling on the incoming administration to provide relief to farmers impacted by mandated H-2A wages.
Greg Bird with the Michigan Vegetable Council tells Brownfield farmers want a two-year freeze on the Adverse Effect Wage Rate so the federal program can be modernized.
“We have a petition that we’re going to give to the new administration, he shares. “We’re telling them that Michigan needs this, the Great Lakes states this need this, and the whole U.S. needs this.”
He says farmers can no longer afford to participate in the guest worker program because of the rising costs.
“That H-2A visa program is absolutely crucial to specially crop farming because you have to have a workforce,” he says. “We love the program. It’s just the cost of it doesn’t get made-up from the sale of your fruit and vegetables.”
He says specialty crop farmers are cutting back production and some farms are closing because the cost increases in the program have become unsustainable.
Michigan’s H-2A rates are currently 80 percent higher than the state minimum wage not including housing and transportation.
Brownfield interviewed Bird during the recent Great Lakes Expo in Grand Rapids.
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