By MATTHEW D. ERNST

Missouri Correspondent

WASHINGTON, D.C. — President Barack Obama’s announcement of an executive order on immigration policy may not go far enough to mean much in agriculture, say many farm groups.

The order would allow at least 250,000 farm workers – including 125,000 in California – to apply for temporary legal status and work permits, according to the United Farm Workers (UFW), which welcomed the President’s announcement. It applies to farm workers who have lived in the United States for five years and have children who are U.S. citizens or Legal Permanent Residents, pass a criminal background check, pay all of their taxes and pay a fee, according to UFW analysis.

But that does not go far enough for all of agriculture, said Bob Stallman, American Farm Bureau Federation president. "Our nation loses millions of dollars in fruit and vegetable production every year because farmers cannot find labor to harvest everything they grow. This order will not change that," he said.

Articles published in the farm press, as well as mainstream outlets such as The Associated Press and The Wall Street Journal, report 70 percent or more of U.S. agriculture workers are in the country illegally. According to the Migration Policy Institute, a nonpartisan think tank in Washington, D.C., 5 percent of the undocumented people here either work in agriculture or have parents who do.

A review of the Migration Policy Institute’s analysis shows agriculture is a top five employer of undocumented people in Iowa, where 8 percent of the unauthorized population (2,000 of 37,000) is estimated to be employed in agriculture. The proportion of the undocumented population employed in agriculture is higher in Kentucky at 15 percent (5,000 of 48,000).

Michigan has 10,000, or 10 percent of its undocumented population, working in agriculture. Agriculture was not among the top five industries employing undocumented workers in Illinois, Indiana, Ohio and Tennessee. There are an estimated 560,000 undocumented people in Illinois, 98,000 in Indiana, 82,000 in Ohio and 124,000 in Tennessee.

U.S. Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.) called on Congress to fix a broken immigration system. "We cannot afford to wait another 511 days to begin addressing this urgent problem, which is why the refusal of House Republicans to do anything to deal with our immigration issues left the President with no choice but to act using his own clear authority," she said. "It’s not too late for Speaker (John, R-Ohio) Boehner to allow the House of Representatives to vote on and pass the bipartisan Senate immigration reform plan, and I continue to urge him to do so immediately."

One key immigration labor area not specifically addressed by the president’s announcement is the H-2A guest worker program. This program is the legal means through which most farms hire seasonal immigrant harvest labor. Farm groups are in wide agreement the program needs reform.

The Agricultural Workforce Coalition, which includes Farm Bureau and many commodity and specialty crop associations, supports changes to the H-2A program contained in the Senate’s immigration reform legislation, S. 744. The bill includes an earned adjustment for experienced agricultural workers in the United States who are in undocumented status, and creates a new agricultural worker program to be administered by the USDA.

Under that program, workers would be able to enter the country under a three-year visa term and work for Designated Agricultural Employers either under a contract or at-will.

Any immigration reform legislation that could pass Congress is likely to create H-2A changes too late for the coming growing season. Western Growers, the association representing California and Arizona produce growers, predict the H-2A wage will increase across all states by 1.7 percent, on average. Every state’s H-2A Adverse Effect Wage Rate will be at least $10, according to the projections.

In agriculture, immigrant labor has been often affiliated with specialty crops – fruit and vegetable farms – and the meat processing industry. The dairy industry is now more reliant on immigrant labor, according to a 2009 study commissioned by the National Milk Producers Federation. That study estimated such labor is employed on half the nation’s dairy farms, representing 62 percent of the nation’s milk supply. "Eliminating one-half of those immigrant workers would reduce U.S. dairy herd size by 671,424 cows, leading to a 14.7 billion-pound decline in milk production and 2,266 fewer farms," according to the report.