New York dairy farmers and agriculture advocates continue to push for comprehensive immigration reform that allows year-round farms to utilize the federal H-2A program and bring workers to the United States legally.
“As a dairy farmer, if I could milk all the cows myself, I would because I really enjoy milking cows, but I need to rely on people, whether they’re local to our community or come from another country,” said Joel Riehlman, a co-owner of Venture Farms in Onondaga County.
The H-2A program is a federal visa that is issued to people to come work as temporary agricultural workers for less than a year. Farms that use the program must be seasonal, meaning they need more help during a specific time of year, such as planting and harvesting. Dairy farms rarely qualify to use the H-2A program because they operate at the same capacity year-round.
“Our cows are milked three times a day, every day, seven days a week, so we need year-round staff here,” Riehlman said. “We would really love it if there were other programs that were more suited to us in the dairy industry.”…