Farmers are spending uneasy Thanksgiving

As Americans feast on Thanksgiving meals, the agriculture industry and workers who supplied the bounty have a plate full of worries.

Farmers are caught in a political stalemate over a farm bill designed to provide a safety net for production of their crops, some of which are being enjoyed across the country today.

Many agriculture employers fear that crackdowns on illegal immigrants will leave them with labor shortages. Meanwhile, farm workers are nervous about planned changes by the Bush administration to a visa program that dictates their pay, work conditions and job competition.

Fingers are being pointed at Congress, which failed to pass a comprehensive immigration reform bill this summer and left for a two-week recess without renewing the farm bill.

The $286-billion bill also is under a presidential veto threat.

Rickey Bearden, a cotton producer on 5,000 acres on the South Plains of Texas, said getting a farm bill finalized is vital as farmers prepare their next year’s financial picture.

“We just need to be able to make plans,” said Bearden, chairman of the Plains Cotton Growers, which serves a 41-county region in the world’s largest contiguous growing patch.

The five-year farm bill expired Sept. 30, but Congress provided a stopgap measure to keep subsidies and other programs such as food stamps funded for a while.

Some spending watchdog groups oppose the bill.

Steve Ellis, vice president for Washington-based Taxpayers For Common Sense, said many of the growers who receive farm payments have little to do with the Thanksgiving dinner Americans are eating today. “In reality, the subsidies are going to a very small percentage of the total number of farmers.”

Increased immigration enforcement has some farmers experiencing worker shortages, with worries that the situation could get worse as Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff fights a ruling that stopped his plan to crack down on the hiring of illegal immigrants.

More than half of U.S. farm workers admit on U.S. Labor Department surveys that they are not legally authorized to work in this country.