first is mr andrew reeves who is the owner of reeves farms welcome and thank you for being here today nancy hourigan is the owner of hourigan's dairy farm welcome and thank you for coming this afternoon and mr tom de maree is the owner of de maree fruit farm thank you very much for being here as is the custom of the committee we'll ask you to please stand and be sworn in please please raise your right hand do you solemnly swear or affirm that the testimony you are about to give is the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth please let the record reflect that the witnesses answered in the affirmative thank you again we'll have each panelists give their opening statement and then we'll take some time to ask questions mr reeves if you would start thank you thank you distinguished members of the committee on oversight and government reforms help committee and regulatory affairs oversight government spending thank you for the opportunity to testify in today's hearing if i could interrupt can you just move the microphone a little bit closer so we can hear your testimony this any better that's better thank you agriculture is the largest industry in new york maybe the largest industry left in the united states in order for agriculture to continue to thrive there must be a streamlined process to bring seasonal temporary labor when necessary the h2a program was supposed to be a tool for the american farmers put in place by congress to expedite a legal temporary workforce this program was supposed to allow farmers to develop a good business plan which ensures a plentiful supply of top quality produce without having to worry about a workforce all of their businesses are able to grow and shrink markets in production depending on demand if a worker leaves for any reason ten others are always ready to fill the void immediately these businesses are based on these variables if you hire an american recruit for temporary labor they will be looking for another job with benefits and fulltime not seasonal status once another opportunity becomes available they leave or don't show up for work one day as a result you must spend an average of six hundred and fifty per worker and begin a one thousand and twelve week process to replace them with the h2a program the h2a program should extend the same freedoms to american farmers as congress originally intended they should be able to expedite legal foreign workers after exhausting all legal local employment opportunities and options in the existing state if an h2a certification has been granted in a neighboring state this would mean neighboring states have a shortage of eligible farm workers i believe to have me advertise in these neighboring states and continue the recruiting process throughout half the life cycle of my contract period is ridiculous for my farm not to be able to ask for experience when hiring is ridiculous for me not to be able to ask for production standards without the challenge from new york or the us department of labor is ridiculous any other business would not and could not operate in the parameters now set by the present h2a law the next problem that needs changing with the program is the length of the process we used to be able to send an application to the state and chicago for processing at the same time we now send out one to the state first and once they finish the process we then have the necessary order number to now move on to chicago with a different form many times the state will approve something but the us department of labor will reject an example is work production standards new york state will allow them but the us department of labor won't they get rejected and thrown back where either an appeal is necessary or remove the standards and move on if you appeal you have an eighty two success rate but you have put your process behind schedule if you choose to appeal the us department of labor will no longer certify your order within thirty days of your date of need new york state will not let me advertise asking for resumes but the us department of labor says i can after we have survived everything to this point we now have to keep records of all applicants who have requested an interview or job we must document this for future audits and accept all applicants throughout half the term of the work contract because the job posting goes on a national site we're bombarded with applications such as a fishing camp cook with a degree in geography wanting to bop in and work for the month of may on his way to alaska in june he must know more about the free housing first how about the family of eastern europeans asking if they can move the whole family here how about the lpn wanting a job because she lost her license and needs a job however she won't work weekends how about the lady from manila how about the kid from auburn wanting a job loading how about berl asking what do i mean about resume these are some of the example of resumes i deal with how about the phd from california who lost his job and applied dr kulzeemalmen these are all lawsuits and possible litigations looming on the horizon because our present system encourages it now if everything is fine we have thirty days or less to finish the process we now move from overnight replies from government to snail mail homeland security claims to turn your petition requests around in thirty four days this is not true if you overnight your i129 to california they stamp it on the day they receive it or the day after a received letter with a next day stamp on it comes to you after the check has cleared usually the process with no problems takes one thousand two hundred and fourteen days from beginning to end we now have one thousand five hundred and eighteen days left under the old process we could block schedule groups when the order had wac number now we must wait until the acceptance comes next we must pay for visa's before we can schedule interviews we must email a request to csc in order to get permission to access a site to schedule interviews this takes five days if you make no mistakes in the requesting process if you make a mistake you will be notified in five days of the mistake and you redo it in five more days you will receive access or another problem the site lets you electronically schedule just fill out a spreadsheet and email i suggest email the electronic system is on it's third spreadsheet and if there is a specific problem you will receive a specific direction back with the email schedule with the electronic system you will receive an error list without a clue of where to begin there are no directions as to how the new system works you attempt to understand and operate it if you fail or have a problem forget it you will receive an email answer which will never answer the question you asked i had a problem with an order which eighteen emails were not answered eleven calls were not returned one day during lunch i found another csc branch with names and numbers a human resources manager from another division was able to make proper contact to their other division for me he was amazed how it took four calls to resolve the issue so we thought when my workers interviewed it still required a call to consulate to inform them the order schedule and farm name were wrong they as usual were very helpful the next issue i have with the h2a program is it's adverse effects wage rate of one thousand and twenty five per hour this is a fifteen increase in labor cost from the program revamp during the past administration the rate went up in these times from one thousand and sixteen this is an unrealistic wage for workers considered unskilled not requiring any previous experience and work standards we pay for visa's we pay for food and travel both ways we take workers to the store we must guarantee at least thirty four of the total hours in the contract we must provide housing and utilities at no additional cost no taxes or social security are deducted many portions of their jobs offer them an opportunity to earn even more when performing piece work when your slower workers are guaranteed a minimum of one thousand and twenty five an hour for piece work your faster workers make considerably more because your production minimum standards are based on the slower workers this is the reason we quit growing green and yellow beans reduce acreage on peas quit growing snow peas and wouldn't raise blueberries if they weren't organic and brought a higher price lack of consistency is my final complaint with the program i can send an i129 with only one copy and get an acceptance i've had a customer do the same and he sent he was sent an approval request and a copy to send another copy and four hundred and four with another form or they may not be able to schedule appointments in consulate i have used production standards and then had customers denied standards i've been told to hire puerto ricans and i have asked them to interview and submit a resume i recently talked to a large orchard producer from virginia their farm hires one hundred and seventy eight h2a workers last year they were forced to use a puerto rican labor force because of problems with the h2a in jamaica i have the same labor reporting system as the grower my vendor verified the orchard production was half last year of other years this farmer was asking me if there was any way around the puerto rican labor situation he said if he has to use puerto rican workers this year he will have an auction how can you expect to tell a business owner how he has to run his business no other business suffers these restrictions now i'll briefly review areas i believe need changed blow up form is the easiest apply to the state and us department of labor at the same time allow standards and experience to be included in job requirements revamp the recruitment process why advertise in a state which already has been approved for h2a workers reduce the recruitment period until the time the h2a workers arrive on the farm if the number of workers on an order reduce because of referrals these slots should remain open so the farmer can fall back on them if the referral workers don't work out or leave introduce a form of arbitration to resolve issues legal service attorney's constantly look for areas to litigate the thirty day rule form the us department of labor is not adequate and encourages farmers to lie about their need date because the process cannot be completed excuse me in thirty days allow farmer to select where he gets his workforce every other business has that freedom speed up the homeland security process or make them tell the truth the us department of labor and the department of state believe in this thirty four day turnaround reduce the wage to a realistic level the bush order was the best system thus far repair the mess created by the new interview scheduling procedure it was introduced before it was ready and i guarantee it wasn't developed by csc they've always been a great company to work with we must include the dairy industry ag jobs is a dead on arrival proposal the change has been morphed into a bad deal for agriculture strive for more consistency across the board state and us department of labor state health department homeland security department of state let the h2a workers pay their own visa fee this is non refundable and they should have some skin in the game i've aired my grievances and hope i was able to shed some light on the problems of h2a ag jobs is not the answer either labor unions and legal service groups that killed the good in this bill already i will not endorse any program with amnesty attached the amnesty act in one thousand nine hundred and eighty seven was another example of it not working the workers moved up the ladder and left a vacuum which was filled with millions of undocumented workers in the united states most of the workers i recruit once spent time illegally in the united states i've convinced them to go back and enter the legal h2a program i've convinced not less than ten farmers to convert to legal h2a workers these people should remain at the front of the line what we now ask for is a program be developed which will partner with today's agriculture industry and finally address the h2a needs of our dairy industry also we need to work this out together for the salvation of the industry this country was built with lets once and for all do this together once and do it right leave the unions and legal service ambulance chasers on the sidelines we owe this to an industry already bombarded with new epa and dec regulations every year we also have trace back food safety requirements whose costs are all the burden of the farmer presently we are at the point of losing our producers if something isn't done washington needs to become proactive with this issue four different programs in three years are confusing the lack of continuity necessary for agribusiness to develop and maintain a long term business plan thank you very much for your time and the invitation thank you mr reeves mrs hourigan thank you for inviting me to testify before you today my name is nancy hourigan and i am a member of onondaga county farm bureau and the board of directors of the new york agricultural land trust my husband john and i and my son matt work over about eight thousand acres of land in onondaga county and operate a dairy farm my family and i are proud of our farm and the time and hard work that we put in to the operation to make it successful and keep it growing our heritage and our roots are in the community and our farm and we want to see this business succeed at what is our core mission producing healthy local milk for our neighbors and fellow citizens of new york state our milk is sold to byrne dairy doesn't get much more local than that but the family farm has changed significantly over the years as we've had to grow in order to keep up with ever escalating regulatory burdens and a price received for our milk that is at the mercy of global market conditions even though our cost factors are particularly influenced by being in a state like new york where all businesses face an unreasonably high cost of taxes energy and labor and regulatory compliance while i can and will expand upon some specific topics that are of concern to me the single biggest point that i want to make at this hearing is that the amount of actual time that i and my family have to spend complying with various federal regulations and that has escalated to the point where i spend more time in an office on computer and filing paperwork than i ever did working with the cows the crops and the personnel on the farm each and every day i spend filing paperwork to comply with various federal regulations and each and every new piece of paper i have to put up on my central posting area on the farm has a cost to it that is profound and can never be recouped the cost is my time and my husband's time no amount of cows or cropland added to the farm to ensure our financial stability will enable us to recoup that time that we have to spend filing ever increasing paperwork paperwork with various agencies i do not believe that each federal agency that we deal with has a comprehensive understanding of what it is like to try to farm in this environment i have to meet mandates from the us department of labor wage and hour paperwork the homeland security office i9 forms us department of agriculture conservation and sanitation issues the us department of transportation dot truck numbers hours of service regulations the epa for nutrient management issues as well as the various state compliance issues while president obama discussed this issue in his state of the union speech in january i can tell you that on the farm itself we have not felt much much of any impact from a lessening of governmental regulations and paperwork clearly we need to have government engaged in ensuring safety for consumers in the food they purchase the roads they travel on and environment however the current emphasis on simply putting more and more regulations and paperwork on farms and small businesses like mine is out of control i will never regain the time i lost and continue to lose in making sure that i am compliant in everything that i have to file so how can the federal government help new york state farm families like myself first and foremost just stop imposing new mandates follow the spirit of the regulatory review commission that president obama discussed and actually implement the recommendations to reduce the amount of time that i spend filing paperwork secondly i would also like to suggest that the federal government wrap up its activity in redirecting farmland protection dollars to new york state as stated i serve on the board of directors of new york agricultural land trust it is clear to me that with the vulnerability of new york's farmland to development they are acute by the barriers placed on farmers by the cost of complying with regulatory mandates the existing funds from the united states department of agriculture have not been directed to new york state as they have been to other states where the farmland is not so acutely in danger of being lost to parking lots and housing developments when farmland is conserved in the local community not only does the land provide wildlife habitat and improved water quality it also ensures that a locally produced food supply is secured and a family farm can remain with the land i would strongly suggest that the formula that drives the allocation of funds to the various states be reviewed with an eye towards towards ensuring that farmland that is particularly vulnerable especially on long island in the city of syracuse in the hudson river receive a priority thirdly i would like to discuss one issue of the epa that has me very concerned because of the precedent setting nature of the agency's actions a section of onondaga county is located in the chesapeake bay watershed my farm is not located within that watershed but the issue is very important to me as my family is connected to other farm families who are in the watershed and rely on our farm to provide cow feed and to do custom work in planting for them and that allows their farms to prosper and grow while i am certainly not opposed to improve to improving water quality in the chesapeake bay it strikes me as odd that all the environmental stewardship practices that i have put in place on my farm and other neighbors have put on their farm were not originally recognized in the epa's overly zealous desire to clean up the bay by imposing strict regulations on agriculture on my farm alone we have spent tens of thousands of dollars constructing a nutrient management storage facility and we are a partner in a community digest to provide waste from our farm and several other farms will help generate energy to county facilities as a family farmer i and my neighbors care about the environment that we leave for our children we are not going to tolerate sloppy behavior nor are we going to fail to do what is right on our farms to protect the environment even when such practices are expensive to implement and are not paid for by the consumer dollar however the epa's over reach on this issue is frightening to me and my fellow farmers as with one single regulation originally proposed in the draft tndl the epa was willing to sacrifice over nine hundred farms in the chesapeake bay watershed i am pleased that the state dec and epa in consultation with new york farm bureau and others came to an agreement to accept new york's watershed implementation plan but i realize this plan may still impose significant regulatory burdens on some smaller family farms so i need to urge you to continue to work for conservation dollars in the next farm bill cycle for the on the farm environmental stewardship measures but the main point that i want to make is that knowing that federal government can act this precipitously and unfairly and jeopardize my own and my neighbors farm operation by issuing one poorly thought out regulation makes me lose sleep at night and question the long term ability of my family to keep our farm in operation for the next generation the last issue that i want to discuss discuss is the need for a realistic and not clogged with paperwork guest worker program that you have already heard about from mr reeves thank you for the opportunity to speak with you today and present testimony from the farmers perspective of the serious and ever increasing federal barriers to growth i appreciate taking the time to listen to me and your consideration of my own time as a farm family business in new york state to try and reduce the time i spend in compliance cost thank you very much mr de maree you're up good afternoon i appreciate being given the opportunity to discuss apple industry and labor concerns thank you for your attention i am tom de maree and i own and operate a two hundred acre fruit farm in the town of williamson wayne county i'm also the current president of new york state hort society and a past board member of the new york apple growers association we grow over one hundred thousand ap one hundred thousand bushels of apples as well as processing peaches and a few other stone fruits we also own and operate cold storages on our farm six people work full time or part time on our farm an additional twenty nine people depend on the seasonal work available through our farm to support their families according to the new york state orchard survey over forty two thousand commercial acres of apples in the state in the past twenty years growers have renewed this acreage at about thirty four a year more than sixty five of the new york apple acreage is in the southern counties on the south shore of lake ontario in the past four years most of the fresh apple growers in these counties have been replanting at a rate of five million one thousand three hundred trees per acre which costs between sixteen six hundred and fifty million thirteen thousand an acre this means that apple growers in these counties over the past four years have invested around forty six million dollars in new apple orchards alone twice this amount is likely to have been invested in farm machinery equipment labor housing and other real estate improvements as well as apple storages packing lines and other profit or marketing facilities over the same period our own operation has invested hundreds of thousands of dollars in capital improvements over the past four years we spend over five thousand an acre annually growing harvesting and delivering our fruit eighty percent which benefits the local economy this is our sixth year using the h2a program securing h2a labor is expensive and increasingly fraught with government red tape and stress the us department of labor and the new york state department of labor in albany are attempting to make this program so difficult that no one would chose to use it growers however have almost no choice but to use this program if they wish to secure legal employees skilled enough to perform the required work efficiently and on time the labor department tells growers what they must put on the work orders eliminating the experience requirements requiring employers to tolerate employees missing up to five consecutive days of work without notifying an employer in advance how are growers supposed to harvest each apple variety in an optimum quality when the workers can miss work without notifying the employer the department of labor in albany has also been requiring referrers to puerto ricans to be interviewed within ten days when these referred persons often have no experience working on a fruit farm growers should not have to argue with or petition dol employees with no practical experience in operating a fruit farm about the experience required for fruit farm employees in a business producing perishable crops thousands of dollars were lost in new york fruit farms and their local economies last year because of delays in securing farm labor fruit was picked late and had a lower quality plus a lower value the failures of secure labor or the loss of skilled labor during a critical planting crop protection or harvesting operation results in financial losses that are not only jeopardizing farm business but also the local economy losses in apple quality jeopardizes both year round and part time employees income fruit growers need employees familiar with their particular grades the market requirements those farms are attempting to meet to secure the best possible price for each variety of fruit fruit growers do not want to train new employees annually they want to retain trained employees untrained employees make expensive mistakes that today's businesses cannot afford workers also prefer to work with the same farm year after year as time goes on there are fewer skilled people who are willing to move from place to place every six hundred and ten weeks to harvest crops as they mature given a choice most people would prefer to earn a living in one place clean and dry environment that does not require continuous physical labor i know that these issues are difficult and controversial at times but growers must have some assurance that they will have a consistent skilled labor workforce available to them that would be willing to retain trained workers congressman slaughter has been recently working as a strong advocate on behalf of growers in contacting the labor department to solve some of these problems i would urge you to contact her office to work with her to get the h2a program to be more responsive to the needs thank you very much for your time thank you very much i thank you to all of our panelists i sit here and i listen to your testimonies and i shake my head and i wonder how did we get to this point where you're subject to both the state as well as the federal regulations board i want you to know that we we're sympathetic here and we would like to work with you the issue that is recurring and recurring and i hear it from both the agriculture as well as the dairy industry is this h2a program and i would like to ask all of you if you in if you could imagine what the perfect h2a program would look like if you could tell us what that would mean to you and what would and ideal h2a program look like to me it would be able to at the same time apply to the state and the federal government same form they virtually ask for the same information it's a federal program so i think the federal department of labor the us department of labor should supersede anything regulated by new york state and at the same time homeland security would be your next step if the process takes one thousand two hundred and fourteen days then lets give more than thirty days to process from beginning to end and not lie about it what i have to do and i shouldn't say this but i'll tell you what i have to do if i need workers on the first of march i have to turn around and say that i need them in the middle of february the first of february because if everything goes well there is no way with the new system from the time i get the certification out of chicago to the time i interview my workers i can do it in thirty days and in my presentation you'll see a day breakdown on it it's going to take one thousand two hundred and fourteen days for homeland security i'm going to spend the next five days this is if i'm sitting in my chair and as soon as i get a notification i'm on the computer and going to work with scheduling appointments you know there's no day in between it's over night stuff everything else so the next thing i do is go to csc that day and say hey i want to be able to schedule appointments so what do they do five days later if i ask them properly you know if i miss one number or something like that in five days they'll tell me hey you missed a number so then i redo it again with the number and then in five days they'll say okay now you can schedule what i need is top to bottom a program developed with the farmers input the people that have to work with it have to make it work we're left away from the table i went to a seminar in december in atlanta on the new program the guy that developed this new program for the department of state didn't want to hear anything from anyone this was his deal he knew what he was doing and this was the way all the conflicts were gonna be and to sit there in the room we had state we had homeland security there we had department of labor there representatives of the consulate and department of state and department of labor couldn't believe when i set up and said what do you mean it takes three or four days for homeland security to process it takes twelve days to two weeks and here's two federal branches that said no it doesn't it's thirty four days i said they cheat on their stamp on the form that's how it's thirty four days but it's a one thousand two hundred and fourteen day process and you've got two federal agencies that are working together with this who are unaware of it you mentioned in your testimony about the bush administration was there a difference in the standards and now it's changed you mentioned you were at a conference about the change the changes three days before president bush left office he did an executive order that changed h2a he rolled back the wage he there were some pluses and minuses to it but it still was the best program yet he streamlined the referrals when you have to advertise to take applications he made it where when they hit your farm you don't have to take anymore applications and keep a record of them because all this period of time like seventy five days up to that point his administration felt was adequate time to look for referrals in us work house and that was changed actually that was changed three days before he left office and there's been three other changes back and forth since that one so in three years we've had four changes and the funny thing is if you're a farmer how do you turn around and say well i'm gonna h2a this year but what's the law gonna be when i was down in atlanta in december the only thing we were handed out was the agenda for the meeting there was not any handout the program south of the border had changed the forms north of the border had changed not one agent or farmer was given anything but the agenda for the meeting because here it was december 6th and they didn't have this program ready to launch january one but yet january 10th it took effect i mean that's just ridiculous have you received any specifics since the january 10th implementation no it's my brothers will tell you that i've lived in my living room on the computer trying to find rules and regulations on where do i get the spreadsheet how do i get the spreadsheet the first the spreadsheet is on it's third copy now the first one i wanted to schedule twenty two workers and i called csc and said your spreadsheet won't work it's not formatted properly to take more than seventeen workers cause five of the twenty two that it would take were formatted properly they told me you don't know what you're talking about cut and paste and come right down through the country names that they had there so i cut and paste thirty three on there and did it electronically and they crashed in the system and it took eighteen emails eleven calls and the problem was once the system made them up we can't sort them out and so this was a two and a half week process that should have been three days but at least now they have a spreadsheet that pretty much working but it's the third one since january thank you i'm way over my five minutes mr kelly i'll yield to you thank you thank you ms burkle have you you can take as much time as you want and really we need to hear you for as long as you want to go because i know how frustrating it is and i'm trying to understand and i'm going to ask it this way what's the reason for the epa is there anybody finding anything that the epa does that makes sense to any of us now we all have state dep's that should have the primacy over how that i would like to think that the local folks know a lot more about what the local issues are than somebody in washington dc that's never been here and doesn't understand what it is that you do what any of you do so if you can't i mean this epa issue is huge it is huge it is shutting down america as we go across the board and i'm not just talking i just wish let's i wish we could tell you that it's only in agriculture i spent two days with health care providers their problem is they can't see any reason to stay in the business you talk to people in the banking business the regulations are so onerous they're afraid to lend money to anybody because they don't know who is gonna come in and shut them down and if this is the united states of america and we're more worried about internal conflict and internal regulation than outside then we've got a real problem but tell me on this epa thing because this is absolutely incredible and i don't think the american public has any idea what you go through you know what they ride down the interstate and they see these beautiful farms and say god i'd love to do that that's got to be fun but just from listening to you folks i mean at some point there's an old saying don't worry about the mule just load the wagon i think the mule's about ready to unhitch himself the only thing i can say all three of us here we do what we do because we just like to be farmers bottom line and we've just all been pulled away from what we like to do because of all these regulations and the paperwork and i'm sure his brothers are really ticked at him a little bit because he's not out there with them cause of the paper we're working i'm sure hoping that you're listening and you can find answers for us because i certainly don't understand it all it's just evolved in the last one thousand and twenty years to such a such a critical mass of paperwork and regulations and we're just not let we just can't farm anymore let me ask you something cause ms burkle asks this question all the time if you knew then what you knew now would you be doing what you're doing well you can see i'm not the youngest one here i'm neither we're starting to question if this is any fun anymore and when my husband says it's not any fun anymore to farm that's serious that's a key phrase and i've heard from more farmers in the last twenty three years and my brothers and i say the same thing the fun is out of agriculture i mean it used to be with the seasonal business you could go on vacation in the winter or there is none of this any longer you're just bogged down with regulations you're bogged we had dec the other day with going through the dec audit and that's another deal that's necessary you know it's an absolute necessary thing but also a lot of the regulations they're requiring out of you are absolutely absurd and on you know on your sprayer you've gotta have a label in a bag on the sprayer not only in the cab because if you drive across the road and a car or something hits you they have to be able to see what's in that tank and every time they're telling you about these regulations and these changes they're also reminding you what the fine is gonna be if you don't do it and they seem more fine oriented than they are production oriented and that's difficult for the agriculture mind to understand we're not into do this or you're gonna get fined we're into lets take a proactive approach and lets get this done i think there's an awful lot of regulation coming both from washington and new york state combined doesn't matter which government you're referring to i've been in the business thirty years thirty years ago we could farm and not necessarily doing anything that we're differently than we are today but we have to certify it we have to fill out forms we have to follow regulations it isn't changing anything that we're really truly doing other than we're spending time filing out forms to tell somebody else in albany or washington what it is that we're doing and it's the same practices the same things that we're doing we're not we're not doing anything different we're not improving anything there's no improvements to our fruit or dairy or vegetables or whatever but we're just having to spend more and more and more of my time my wife's time in following paperwork following rules doing things doing things that somebody else says that we have to do that isn't changing anything isn't improving how the fruit is grown how the vegetables are grown or how the milk is produced it isn't different it's all been the same and hasn't changed in thirty years it's the same and yet we're spending i'm spending ten hours a week just doing forms and reading new rules and regulations albany just came down with a new set of rules that you have to file a new form every time there's a change in an employee status if an employee works has a work agreement with us that says they're gonna work forty five hours if you work forty eight hours last week i have to get a new paperwork and fill out a new form because his hours changed that's how crazy the system has gotten to be because some where along the line somebody got taken advantage of probably i won't say that it isn't good isn't the way that it should be but when you start making everybody try to solve problems because of one incident the world is gonna come to a stop because you can't regulate everything every problem every issue out of reality so i appreciate your testimony because i find it absolutely intriguing that a business that runs somewhere between a trillion three and a trillion five a year in the red has the audacity to come in and tell you how to run your business my question really comes down to if any of these people that come in and set the bar and i asked the last group this the people that set the standards have any of them actually done anything in agriculture i mean actually been in farming no no absolutely not okay so this is a software program that somebody puts on their laptop and tells you what you're gonna do absolutely and as it was said a few minutes ago the h2a program that we're using to have labor that's legal and i can sleep at night knowing that i'll have a workforce there tomorrow that ice isn't going to come in and take them away because i thought it was legal they showed me documents that determined to be legal but they weren't they can come in and take my workforce away and my crop will fall on the ground and i'll have no recourse this is the program i'm using so that i can sleep at night knowing that i can get a crop picked of apples and yet we have all kinds of problems trying to secure a legal workforce and no body wants to hear when you try to talk to somebody about what's been said no body wants to hear what your problem is absolutely no body wants to hear what your problem is they know better in the agencies that you're dealing with than what i do when i'm trying to do my job and that's a very very frustrating thing and we spend more time right now on organizations and telephoning the people that are sitting here we spend more time in organizations trying trying just to keep a toe in the door in trying to keep some of this regulations at bay and no body wants to hear us do you ever have an audience with any of these folks this alphabet soup of people that show up whether it's epa ded whoever it is any of them ever give you the audience to sit down and discuss with you what your problems are and what the common fixes would be from the people who actually do it no so other than seeing ms burkle and myself you really wouldn't have a chance to talk to a government that pretty much dictates how you run your business i've been to washington and the last congress and the organization that i'm president of has been to washington this year and i've been there last year and talked about these same issues and it's just the same thing over and over and over again that we keep asking for relief and don't get anywhere every time virtually every time they make the program different they make it more difficult they don't make it easier they make it more difficult because the mindset is that we're going to put we're going to reduce the unemployment rate so we're not going to allow foreign nationals to come in and work in this country that that's the mindset of what's going on in this program that's where the whole problem with this program is is that the mindset is that we don't want this program because we want to put us citizens to work my business and every body's business is a short window of time that we need people i can't hire somebody for sixty eight weeks or ten weeks put on thirty employees for eight hundred and ten weeks and then tell them that they can't work anymore because i don't have anything else for them to do there's who's going to come to work for me for ten weeks for four thousand and fifty hours a week depending on how the week goes and then tell them at the end of the eight hundred and ten weeks well i'm sorry i don't have anymore work where do they go what do they do how do i hire somebody that's only going to work for me for eight hundred and ten weeks a year that's my business that's what i'm in and that's what i have to face and that's why this program gives me that opportunity to try and bring somebody in that isn't out of our country that has people willing to work and yet nobody wants to seem to help us make that system work at least reasonably well for us thank you safety's a big issue and we're deep in the food safety with daily deliveries fresh produce all the while and fortunately this year thank you we're able to get one hundred return workers from mexico what this does and people don't understand it the us department of labor and state doesn't this is critical because our food safety program has standards everything we harvest in the field has a written standard that has to be followed and inspected twice a year our workers return they know the standard it's the same thing they follow the procedure we go through the inspections we do a great job of food safety this is why it's critical to have continuity in your workforce and not have to i mean imagine having the same workers as last year and have to jump though all these hoops to try to get them back and hope that you get them back and it's all tied in with everything else the food safety issue life wildlife i have to monitor wildlife in our fields on a daily basis and keep a log if i see a goose i have to document where i saw it and how i chased it off same with a deer this is the safety these are the food safety requirements that walmart price chopper and wegmans and it's good they're looking out for the consumer and we don't mind that but there has to be somewhere some one our side and a lot of it's our own fault i think labor myself is the biggest issue in agriculture number two is perception you know the news media is as guilty as anyone else look at an agriculture commercial on television green giant and here's five guys picking sweet corn in peach boxes here's a stouffers commercial i think it's stouffers here's a guy growing peppers and on the other side of the fence is a dairy farmer now isn't that ridiculous you can't have that anywhere near anything and we tolerate it picrite here's a company that's owned by a farmer he's got an old john deere four hundred and thirty cultivating in a field and says that's my business manager as soon as he gets finished plowing i wrote him a letter stating this is bad for agriculture we're high tech we're an industry an industry to be reckoned with we've got to stop this he sent me a certificate for a twelve ounce bag of frozen veggies but we are our own worst enemy we are high tech i'm proud of what i do for a living i've worked in industry nothing has been as challenging as what agriculture is you do all this and you deal with the weather beside we need to do a better job of advertising the technology in our business the education it takes to run a business like this and run it successfully and we need to pound it into the media also get out there on the farm and do a story follow though one of these audits in the field on food safety look at what we're doing in agriculture and we should not any longer tolerate these commercials that degrade agriculture and the farmers and make us look like a bunch of country hicks because no one is going to be successful in farming any longer if they don't have an education and they don't have the ability to put two and two together and take a proactive approach for the future i guess they do that's exactly i mean it is exactly how so many of us feel and that agriculture today that we're the green acres generation back with the pitch forks and bib overalls and riding around and you know that's the perception that we work against in well but it can be also in a regulatory agencies that we deal with is that the mind set is is that agriculture in this country is run by a bunch of hillbillies pardon the reference to anybody that takes offense to it but that's exactly how it's felt as i said in my statement when somebody else sitting at a desk in albany or washington can tell me how to fill out and what i have to put in my work order and what a work order can and cannot have in it and is telling me that my business will operate because of what this work order has in it how am i going to survive i can tell you today that the generation that's working my farm is the last generation that's going to work that farm i'll end by saying and i told you our milk is sold to byrne dairy which is a local business i'm really glad these two guys are still in business because i appreciate local food and i'm glad to know where it's coming from and how it's produced and i hope all the rest of you do the same well i'm just gonna finish up now that my turn back is broke keep your passion and don't give it up because i'm telling you the way we'll fix it is by staying on message and not getting distracted i know it's hard to do and i know every day you wonder why i keep doing this and how much longer can i do it just keep in mind if we don't get it fixed here there's no other place in the world it can be fixed so lets just make sure we all stay on target and we'll get this fixed it's gonna take a lot of fight from all of us thank you for being here i appreciate your bravery for being here and taking the time out of what you do every day and spend it with us thank you thank you thank you mr kelly and i would like to thank all of you as well i too would like to echo mr kelly's comments if you quit they win so this is about preserving all that you've worked for we want you to know how much we appreciate your efforts and for you to be here today and to take time off from your busy schedules we'd like to work with you we'd like to continue this dialog we'd like to take your message to washington which we will i failed to introduce we have members here from the oversight government reform staff so they're listening and working with us as well so we will take this message to washington it won't stop here in this room we want to encourage you please work with us and dialog with us and lets continue to get this job done thank you all very much for being here thank you thank you thank you very much for your time