Arizona needs guest worker reform to keep dairies alive and milk in your glass

Arizona isn’t known as one of America’s top dairy states, but there’s a very good chance that the milk in your refrigerator is the product of one of the state’s family-run dairies.

Arizona dairies produced nearly 5 billion pounds of milk last year, about 2 billion pounds more than when my family started dairying in Arizona in 1998. We’ve grown with the state, and we’ll keep growing as long as it’s possible.

Finding adequate farm labor is one of the greatest challenges we face. We employ almost 40 workers on our operation outside Palo Verde, which has grown to milking nearly 5,000 cows.

Small towns across the state benefit from the jobs created by farms like ours. And I’m proud to say we’ve had stability in our workforce – one employee has been with us since our start in Arizona, and several more have worked here for more than 15 years.

But like other businesses, we’re struggling to attract the high-quality labor force we need to grow.

Few citizens want to do tough dairy work

Most of our newer employees come to us via word-of-mouth, since “Help Wanted” signs aren’t as effective on a rural road. Back when labor markets weren’t so tight, occasionally people would stop by and ask for work, but that rarely happens now. Even rarer is an application from a native-born American.

Dairy farming, and agricultural labor in general, is hard work that provides opportunities for people who want to take a job on a farm to start climbing the ladder of economic opportunity. In the current labor environment, without any immigration reform that increases farmworker availability, finding those workers is already difficult.

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But dairy also has some specific constraints that we’re hoping Congress and the White House can help fix.

Dairy has traditionally been one of the better-paying, more stable parts of agriculture for farmworkers. It doesn’t depend on migrating to follow a seasonal harvest, instead offering reliable work in an established location to anyone willing to keep up with cows that are milked every day, year-round.

But the very things that might make a dairy farm appealing to someone seeking opportunity keep those potential employees from being able to work at one legally.

Guest worker program doesn't apply to us

The current H-2A agricultural guest worker program, the main visa used for farmworkers, by design can only be used to fill seasonal jobs. It’s based on a model of part-year, itinerant workers, not employees who have built up the skills to work with animals and help a dairy farm prosper 365 days a year.

Even as workplaces in general experience shortages and competition for workers is intense, dairy farms are shut out from this traditional, and increasingly important, source of agricultural labor, even when compared to other types of farming.

That’s curbing the growth of Arizona dairies, both by limiting the human resources needed to expand and by adding pressure to the workers already there.

The uncertainties surrounding immigration, combined with agriculture’s incredible need for immigrant labor, creates tough situations for everyone, both for workers who may feel a need to live “in the shadows” and for farmers who worry that people who are just trying to put in an honest day’s work to support their families may not be in situations stable enough to build a future.

It’s no way to run a business, or for its employees to run their lives. It needs to be fixed.

Arizona needs the Senate to act

Congress has an opportunity to solve this problem now. Last year, the House of Representatives passed the bipartisan Farm Workforce Modernization Act, with dozens of Republicans joining Democrats for a fix that included a workable H-2A program for dairy.

The overall bill was far from perfect, and many in agriculture are working for changes to improve it in the Senate – but those improvements can’t take effect unless the Senate passes its own ag labor bill, which seems to be stalled.

Dairy needs ag-labor reform. The more employee stability dairies have, the better job we can do of taking care of everything from our cows to our resources to the needs of our own workers.

Any policy problem involving immigration is difficult – we know that – but ag-labor reform, and specifically reforms that help dairy, is a simpler, and critical lift.

Everyone on my farm would like to see Congress act. That will help keep fresh, local milk on Arizona tables – and that benefits everyone, from farm to fork.

Josh Gladden owns and operates JG Dairy, which milks 5,000 cows and farms 2,500 acres outside Palo Verde, southwest of Phoenix. Reach him at jgdairy@gmail.com.

This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Arizona dairy farms need guest worker reform to keep growing