AGRICULTURE: THERE'S AGREEMENT ON IMMIGRATION REFORM -- ON THE FARM By Jerry Hagstrom

FRESNO, Calif. -- A House Agriculture Committee hearing on the 2012 farm bill Monday turned into a push for immigration reform to help farm workers.

 "As important as the farm bill has become to America's specialty crop industries, it is difficult to have a serious discussion about the future success of specialty crop producers without acknowledging the elephant in the room -- farm labor," said Jon Reelhorn, owner of Belmont Nursery in Fresno."We fully recognize that farm labor is not a traditional farm bill issue,"he said. "Nonetheless, we raise it for this simple reason: Lack of timely and thoughtful resolution of the farm labor crisis will hasten the off-shoring of our specialty crop and livestock agriculture." Reelhorn said that despite the recession, Americans are not rushing to fill jobs on farms. He also said it was his impression that worksite raids that were a focus of the George W. Bush administration have accelerated in the Obama administration. Reelhorn, who testified on behalf of the American Nursery & Landscape Association and the California Association of Nurseries and Garden Centers, said he and others supported the AgJobs bill introduced by Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif.

The measure would reform the H-2A visa program and provide farm laborers a path to citizenship."It's not fair for the government to make me a criminal," David Roberts, a citrus grower in Visalia, Calif., told the committee after testifying that he knows he cannot maintain a legal work force. "I am a criminal on multiple levels," Roberts said. Rep. Mike Conaway, R-Texas, told the witnesses that they need to make sure "the way left and right do not dominate the conversation" on immigration reform. The borders need protection, Conaway said, "but these are people."

 Idaho farmers also called for immigration reform at the committee's hearing in Nampa, Idaho, on Saturday, according to IdahoReporter, a Web site run by the Idaho Department of Health & Welfare. House Agriculture Chairman Collin Peterson said after the Fresno hearing that he was not surprised that the farmers brought up immigration even though his committee does not have jurisdiction over it. "Every place I go in agriculture we get the same message," Peterson said. "Agriculture understands we've got to have some way of meeting this [challenge]. The problem is the two extremes won't do anything." Rep. Jim Costa, D-Calif., whose district includes parts of Fresno, said the AgJobs bill could be considered a pilot project since it would probably be limited to a three- to five-year span.