For a state that was built on dreams and calls itself the Golden State, it is ironic that California has one of the highest poverty rates in the United States. California farmers and ranchers could change that statistic if given a chance, California Farm Bureau Federation President Jamie Johansson said during a speech at the CFBF Leaders Conference in Sacramento.
"Agriculture has a solution to this poverty. We create wealth and we create jobs," he said. "All we ask for is a little soil, a little sunlight and some water, and maybe a little help here and there from a state Legislature that could ease some of the regulatory burdens that they have placed on us."
In preparing Farm Bureau attendees for legislative visits later in the day (see story), Johansson said farmers and ranchers do make a difference when they have face-to-face meetings with legislators and their staffs to outline some of the challenges they face because of laws and regulations.
"Make no mistake, we are pushing back," he said.
Johansson said he was looking at some of the past years’ crop reports and saw that in 1993, California farmers and ranchers produced 200 different commodities.
"Today it is 400 different commodities that we grow. We are a thriving industry despite the pressures of a Legislature and bureaucracy that doesn’t want to face the reality of what we need to do to farm," he said.
The CFBF president also addressed the problem of inadequate water storage in California. The passage of Proposition 1 in 2014 set aside $2.7 billion for new water storage, but he noted that staff of the California Water Commission had given surprisingly low scores to surface-storage projects that applied for bond money.
"The people of California want more storage. That is the promise that we got from the governor, so we need to push hard," he said. "If we are going to have to deal with deluges that dump a lot of water in a short period of time, we need to capture that water at places that make sense."
On federal issues, Johansson noted the ongoing discussions about immigration law, which came into sharper focus last week when the federal government sued the state of California for allegedly impeding federal immigration enforcement.
"California Farm Bureau is charging hard on immigration reform," he said. "Our farmers need it and our farmworkers need it. We have kicked the can down the road for far too long. But there is a real opportunity now to deal with the reality of our farmworkers. So, we are pushing forward and we are happy that the discussions are taking place, but there are some serious changes that need to be made to the current proposal."
Johansson was referring to a bill authored by House Judiciary Chairman Robert Goodlatte, R-Va., that includes provisions California farms find troubling. They include a cap on the number of agricultural guestworkers who could enter the United States, and the fact that the legislation does not accommodate unauthorized workers who are already in the country.
"The current Goodlatte bill places the cap at 450,000 guestworker participants. California employs 470,000 seasonal farmworkers every year," he said, noting that the number of visas would be inadequate even for California’s agricultural workforce needs.
"The second thing is that it doesn’t deal with the existing workforce that is already here," Johansson said. "Your employees would have to return to a country that they no longer have any ties to. But they would have to go back and rely on the government to get the paperwork correct to bring them back in."
(Steve Adler is associate editor of Ag Alert. He may be contacted at sadler@cfbf.com.)