July 16, 2007

ISSUE 1175

SENATORS URGE INCLUSION OF AGJOBS IN FARM BILL

Senators Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., and Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, are urging the Chair and Ranking Member of the Senate Agriculture Committee to include the AgJOBS bill as part of the 2007 Farm Bill.

In a July 10 letter addressed to Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, and Saxby Chambliss, R-Ga., they said the legislation needed to be added to the larger measure because the Senate had failed to invoke cloture on the comprehensive immigration bill, and farmers need a legal, stable workforce.

“We understand that you will soon mark up the 2007 Farm Bill and we intend to work with you to include AgJOBS as part of this bill,” the letter concluded. AgJOBS would help provide the agricultural industry with a reliable workforce and would implement needed reforms to the H-2A temporary farmworker visa program.

On the House side of farm bill developments, Rep. Dennis Cardoza, D-Calif., told Agriculture Committee Chairman Collin Peterson, D-Minn., that he cannot support a farm bill that does not contain sufficient funding for specialty crops.

Cardoza also met July 12 with members of the Specialty Crop Farm Bill Alliance, telling the group that he is working to secure additional mandatory funding for specialty crops.

Cardoza, who chairs the Agriculture Horticulture and Organic Subcommittee, is seen as one House member who “must be satisfied on specialty crop issues,” Congressional Quarterly reported.

Cardoza, along with Florida Republican Adam Putnam and others, introduced the EAT Healthy America Act in March, which would increase USDA conservation, research, rural development, and marketing programs to the benefit of specialty crop growers.

SENATORS URGE INCLUSION OF AGJOBS IN FARM BILL

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