The U.S. pork industry needs comprehensive labor reform to address a labor shortage. The National Pork Producers Council (NPPC) introduced a new campaign on July 1, “Year-Round Pork Needs Year-Round Workers,” highlighting this need and the vital role of foreign-born workers across the U.S. pork industry.
“The U.S. pork industry is highly dependent on foreign-born workers who make tremendous contributions in their jobs and communities,” NPPC President Jen Sorenson, communications director for Iowa Select Farms in West Des Moines, Iowa, said in a release. “Unfortunately, current visa programs don’t provide access to enough workers to meet our labor needs on farms and in plants.”
The stories of four foreign-born workers and their employers are featured in this campaign highlighting the essential contributions of these workers and the opportunities created by a position in the U.S. pork industry.
NPPC is urging Congress to address labor reform that both opens the H-2A visa program to year-round labor, without a cap, and provides legal status for agricultural workers already in the country, the release said.
“There are not enough people that want to work in agriculture to fill the jobs that we have. If we’re not able to provide people to raise these animals, we’re going to have to raise less of them and that means that you’re going to pay more for that protein source,” Michael Springer, a hog farmer from Independence, Kan., said in a release.
Pork operations provide jobs with good pay and benefits, NPPC explains, but most Americans do not live near hog farms or harvest facilities and rural populations continue to decline, causing the U.S. pork industry to be largely dependent on foreign-born workers.
“People want to eat 365 days a year. Our current seasonal visa program does not work for livestock production because it does not put people on our farm 365 days a year to take care of the animals,” Springer said.
Learn more about NPPC’s campaign here.
More from Farm Journal’s PORK:
