Concerns about a lack of labor farms due to immigration reform "has been and continues to be an issue," said former U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue, while commenting to Newsmax about confirmation hearings for Brooke Rollins, the nominee for his onetime job.
"Our H-2A program was very ineffective," Perdue, who worked during President Donald Trump's first administration, told "Wake Up America." "We had worked during my term in the first Trump administration in order to streamline that, and we were not ultimately successful. We were stopped by some situations in labor that I thought were really unfair."
The H-2A program allows U.S. employers to bring in foreign workers for temporary agricultural work, helping employers who do not have enough domestic workers.
Rollins, during her confirmation hearings Thursday, said that if she is confirmed, she'll work with Congress to address worker shortages.
She further said that the Agriculture Department will "do everything we can to make sure that none of these farms or dairy producers are put out of business."
Perdue said he hopes that Rollins, along with Trump, can iron out the issues for farm labor and pointed out that there are many laborers who have been in the United States, and "they've become like family."
"They're not recent people coming over the wall or the southern border," he said. "These are people that have been contributing to the food supply in Georgia and the United States for a long time."
Rollins' confirmation hearing also focused on the effect of trade policies on farmers, including whether U.S. farmers could feel the effects if other countries retaliate over sanctions.
"When President Trump instilled the tariffs initially, he gave Ambassador [Robert] Lighthizer and me the authority to create a program that did as much as we could to hold farmers harmless for any kind of trade retaliation that took place, and we used that very effectively," Perdue said, adding that he has spoken with Rollins and she has committed to continue that policy.
Rollins further testified that she is committed to fighting diseases that are affecting the farming industry, including the bird flu that has driven the prices of eggs and poultry to high levels.
"We're continuing to work on vaccinations and then research, obviously, but working with the private sector to create a vaccine that we can immunize our poultry flock across the country is the best answer right now," said Perdue. "We have to isolate those areas where we find the avian influenza and protect them and do our best to contain it. It's almost like a wildfire. When you find it, you have to contain it, or it spreads very voraciously into other areas."
Meanwhile, Purdue said Rollins has the expertise and management experience, having run the Texas Policy Foundation and worked in the White House, to run the Department of Agriculture and its more than 100,000 employees.
"She has the capability and the personality and the temperament to manage that kind of workforce," he said. "But it's really choosing the right people, the right team around you. No one person can do everything, but I think she is putting an excellent team together that can serve the American public with dignity."
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Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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