Washington ag leaders: Immigration reform vital for economy

Farmers all across the country are in desperate need of immigrant workers and laws to allow them to work. - - Donna Poisl

BY DAVID LESTER, YAKIMA HERALD-REPUBLIC

ELLENSBURG -- More Washington farmers are expected to turn to a federal foreign guest worker program out of concern that last fall's labor shortage will only get worse in 2012, employer advocates say.

And Washington's agriculture director said he believes solving agriculture's labor needs through comprehensive immigration reform may require a nationwide groundswell similar to the civil rights movement of the 1960s.

"It will take that much effort to solve this," Agriculture Director Dan Newhouse, a Sunnyside farmer and former state representative, told a farm labor conference here last week.
Click on the headline above to read the rest of this story! This is only a small part of it.