"The importance of yogurt to dairy farmers in New York is akin to that of ethanol to corn farmers in Iowa," Clayton writes. Several major corporations have shown interest in starting yogurt businesses in New York, including a proposed 350,000-square-foot yogurt processor in Batavia. The $200 million investment will hire 150 employees. The plant is adjacent to a new $20 million Greek yogurt plant.
Finding Americans to work at the plants has been difficult. John Emerling, whose 1,200-cow operation has 20 employees, many of them Hispanics, told Clayton that despite high unemployment, "it wouldn't matter what we paid. People just wouldn't answer."
So the New York yogurt business turns its eyes to the House, which may not take up the immigration bill until October," Clayton writes. The Senate reform bill, which passed in June, would legalize the 11 million now in the country illegally. "The bill has a special provision giving a 'blue card' to farm workers who have worked at least 100 days on farms over a two-year period in 2011-12. After five years, they can become permanent residents. Five years later, those workers can apply for citizenship. The bill also would allow up to 112,333 new agricultural worker visas, a number that could grow depending on labor conditions." (Read more)
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