Grower Loses Workers Following Audit

The Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency is making good on a promise to step up audits on illegal immigrants, and one of the biggest apple growers in central Washington is Exhibit A that agriculture is not exempt from the scrutiny.

The shift in enforcement focus from targeting illegal immigrants during the Bush administration to targeting employers who hire them in the Obama administration was announced last spring by Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano.

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Grower Loses Worker

EPA to Study Natural-gas Drilling's Effect on Water

The Environmental Protection Agency announced Thursday that it will launch a $1.9 million study into how drinking-water supplies are affected by hydraulic fracturing, a method used to turn shale rock into natural gas wells.

The practice, which has been used for decades, unlocks natural gas by shattering shale rock with high-pressure blasts of water, chemicals and sand.

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EPA to Study

Ag Groups File Suit to Stop H-2A Rule

The American Farm Bureau Federation and the North Carolina Growers Association have filed suit to stop implementation of a final rule for the H-2A program.

That final rule goes into effect March 15 and introduces changes that farm labor advocates could make wages in some regions as much as $2 per hour higher for guest workers.

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Suit to Stop H-2A

Dairy Farmers Being Asked to Weigh in on Anti-trust Issues at GCC Meeting

Assistant Attorney General Christine Varney

Are New York's dairy farmers being harmed by possible monopolies in the milk-processing industry?

That's one of the questions the nation's top anti-trust cop will try to answer when she meets with a group of dairy owners at Genesee Community College at 11 a.m., March 27.

The meeting isn't a hearing, but Assistant Attorney General Christine Varney will be on hand to hear directly from farmers what complaints they might have regarding alleged price fixing.

New York Farm Bureau President Dean Norton said the farm bureau has been working on getting farmers to the meeting, but he doesn't have a position on whether there are monopoly practices in the industry.

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GCC Meeting