January 1st 2012 Issue

Georgia peach growers use H-2A

It was a way to avoid the impact of Georgia’s anti-illegal–immigrant law.

Peach growers were conspicuously absent from the list of fruit and vegetable producers who suffered crop losses when some 11,000 seasonal farm workers failed to show up for harvest. The reason? Most of Georgia’s peach crop is picked by H-2A workers. They didn’t shun Georgia after the state passed anti-illegal-immigrant legislation in April. Like a similar law in Arizona, Georgia’s Illegal Immigration Reform and Enforcement Act makes it a crime to harbor or transport undocumented immigrants, imposes penalties for providing false papers to them, and allows law enforcement officers to check immigration status on anyone they suspect to be in […]

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January 1, 2012

Legal & Regulatory, Stone fruits, Labor, Richard Lehnert

Richard Lehnert

After growing up on a Michigan dairy farm, Richard Lehnert began writing about farming in 1962, while still a junior studying journalism at Michigan State University. He worked at newspapers for a year before joining the staff of Michigan Farmer, where he spent 26 years, the last 15 as chief editor. He was a member of the staff of Good Fruit Grower from 2010 until 2015. Read his stories: Story Index

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