Washington, DC – Continuing her fight to help New York’s farmers, many of whom are facing a severe and immediate agricultural workforce crisis, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton has renewed her call on the Senate to pass meaningful reform to the nation’s agricultural labor system. In a statement, Senator Clinton emphasized the need for immediate action to aid New York farmers who are facing serious labor shortages and stressed the importance of the contribution these farmers make to New York’s economy.

Over the past few months, Senator Clinton has heard from farmers across New York who are suffering economically as a result of the current situation. Senator Clinton also recently met in Washington, DC with representatives from New York’s agricultural communities, including New York Apple Sales, Inc., the New York Apple Association, the New York State Horticultural Society and a representative from Torrey Farms in Elba, NY, about this situation.

Earlier this month, Senator Clinton also wrote to Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist and Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, stressing the urgent need to pass agricultural labor reform legislation. Senator Clinton noted that as the Senate prepares to recess without the passage of comprehensive immigration reform, a crisis is taking hold on New York’s farms.

In her statement to the Congressional Record, Senator Clinton urged passage of the bipartisan Agricultural Job Opportunities, Benefits, and Security Act (AgJOBS), which would provide American farmers with the long overdue relief they need to secure an adequate workforce. The AgJOBS bill would not only expand the current H-2A program, it would also modernize its procedures, making it easier for American farmers to use. The legislation would also provide a one-time adjustment to legal status for experienced farm workers who are already working in the country but who currently lack legal documentation. The AgJOBS bill has wide bipartisan support.

[A copy of Senator Clinton’s statement submitted to the Congressional Record follows:]

Mr. President, as I have often reminded my colleagues, New York State is an agricultural state. We are home to 36,000 farms, and our farmers are world-class producers of dairy products, apples, grapes, honey, maple syrup, great wines, and other fruits and vegetables. New York is truly a land of milk and honey – and so much more. Agriculture contributes almost $4 billion to New York’s economy. More than 1.2 million people work on farms or in farm-related jobs.

But farmers in New York who are contributing so much to our economy and way of life – in a plight shared by the agricultural industry across the country – face an incredible challenge to maintain a workforce that does the difficult job of harvesting crops and bringing our state’s bounty to the marketplace.

That is why I continue to fight for a solution. And as we consider the Craig and Feinstein amendments, I hope we can keep these farmers – many of whom I have met and worked closely with these past six years – in our focus, and put the politics and partisanship aside. There are those in this chamber who have strong disagreements over how to pursue comprehensive immigration reform. But I hope that these proposals to stand by our family farmers and agricultural industry, both struggling to find labor, are not held hostage to the larger debate.

Our farmers have long desired a legal, stable workforce and have been calling for reform. But now they face the prospect of crops dying in the field or on the vine – or worse, their farms going out of business, because of a shortage of workers. We’ve had the best apple crop in years in New York, but the lack of labor has left apples unpicked on the trees. We are in the midst of the harvest season in New York State and the 36,000 farm families face the real risk – this year – of losing their livelihoods if we cannot ensure a legal, stable workforce for them. In fact, according to the Farm Bureau, New York’s agricultural industry stands to lose $289 million with fruit and vegetable growers estimated to lose more than $100 million without a solving this problem.

Farmers have shared with me their stories. Many feel abandoned to election-year politics, partisan wrangling, and a government that does not recognize their hardship. Our farmers’ crops are dying in the fields. We cannot allow a real solution to die on the vine.

In recent meetings with scores of New York farmers from across the state, it was stressed to me that the current worker program in place – the H-2A legal guest worker program – is antiquated, unworkable, and woefully inadequate. Couple this with the recent increases in enforcement by the Social Security Administration and the Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and the result has been major disruptions to our farms.

I join with many of my colleagues in this chamber who believe that workplace enforcement is imperative. But as we all know, our current laws are broken and enforcement has been inadequate and haphazard at best. We know this because we have been debating reforms for months, some of us for years. These increases in enforcement have left our farmers reeling. Day to day, they do not know whether their labor force will show up for work, whether their workers have been apprehended by Immigration and Custom Enforcement or whether they have simply fled the area out of fear of apprehension. Whatever the cause, the result is our farms are being paralyzed.

It is worth noting that the farmers I have spoken with are trying in good faith to obey the law. They get labor referrals from the New York State Department of Labor. They inspect work documents to ensure that they have a legal workforce. Our farmers are on the losing end of a broken system and it’s up to us to fix it.

For several years, a broad, bipartisan coalition of Senators has advocated for passage of the Agricultural Job Opportunities, Benefits, and Security Act (AgJOBS) and other legislative reforms that would provide our farmers with the long overdue relief they need to maintain a workforce.

The AgJOBS bill would not only expand the current H-2A program, it would also modernize and streamline its procedures, making it easier for our farmers to use. AgJOBS would also provide agricultural employers with a stable labor supply by giving many undocumented agricultural workers the chance to earn the right to become legal immigrants.

The AgJOBS compromise was reached after years of negotiations, and it represents a unique agreement between farmworker labor unions and agricultural employers. It has the support of a broad coalition of organizations, including major business trade associations, Latino community leaders, civil rights organizations, and religious groups.

Moreover AgJOBS will promote our security by helping our government identify persons inside the U.S. who are here without authorization. By encouraging farm workers to come out of the shadows, we can stand by family farms while refocusing our limited resources on real threats to our security.

I applaud the leadership of Senators Craig, Kennedy, Feinstein, and Boxer on this issue. I support the Craig and Feinstein amendments to this bill because we share a belief that we can tackle this crisis.

We are in this chamber debating amendments that will serve our farm economy, and serve to make our immigration system fairer and more workable. What I hope is that we can put politics aside and have a vote, up or down, yes or no. We owe it to our farmers, workers, and consumers to pass a bill that will help save our farms and agricultural industry.

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