Labor is at the top of the ag industry’s legislative goals for the new year. The Washington Farm Bureau says labor is the number one input cost for their farmers and ranchers with the state’s costs currently 400 percent higher than the national average.
“This is critical. It is impacting farmers and ranchers across the state, and it’s something that needs to be addressed, and to do that, we will continue to work on some type of overtime mitigation, some kind of solution to that critical issue for farmers. And then, you will also see a new attempt for farmworker unionization, and we have to delve a little deeper into what the impacts on agriculture would be,” said Bre Elsey, Director of Government Affairs at the Washington Farm Bureau.
Fruit and vegetable farmers are especially hit. The specialty crop growers spend nearly 38 percent of their expenses on labor.
