News

U.S. House members form Specialty Crop Caucus

A bipartisan group of lawmakers has created the Congressional Specialty Crops Caucus to build support for farm bill priorities.

Michigan Democrat Elissa Slotkin says she expects the caucus to also advocate for small farms.

“We need to make sure, particularly our small farmers, can survive,” she says. “We need to make sure we’re looking at the next generation of farmers. And while that may be easier to identify in a big farm with thousands and thousands of acres, a lot of our specialty crop farmers are smaller farms.”

During a call with reporters, California Congressman Jim Costa says specialty crop growers have special challenges that need to be addressed with additional funding for research and crop insurance.

Slotkin tells Brownfield farm labor issues need comprehensive legislation to make meaningful reform.

“We’re dealing with Band-Aids,” she says. “I know talking to farmers, everyone wants to pay their labor more, but you gotta be making more profits to pay your people.”

California Republican David Valadao says labor costs are impacting the nation’s food production.

“It’s gotten to the point where farmers can’t afford to actually package some of the fruits and vegetables,” he says. “They’ll leave stuff out there in the field instead of paying the labor to put in a box and try to sell it at a loss.”

The U.S. House has twice passed the Farm Workforce Modernization Act, but it stalled in the Senate.

Lawmakers say they hope to mark up the farm bill before Memorial Day.