H-2A CDL Drivers Needed For Sugarcane Industry

The following is a statement from Louisiana Commisioner of Agriculture and Forestry Dr. Mike Strain issued during a meeting of the National Association of State Departments of Agriculture in Washington, DC:

NASDA urges the United States Secretary of Labor to recognize

sugarcane as a commodity and to use his authority to fulfill the

commitment of President Trump to our nation’s farmers by making the

Department of Labor’s guest worker programs more accessible and easier

for our farmers, including sugarcane growers, to use. Maintaining

farmers’ access to H2-A CDL drivers for the final stage in harvesting

sugarcane is essential to that commitment.

With a nationwide deficit of domestic drivers with commercial driver

licenses (CDL), 60,000, sugarcane farmers need access to CDL drivers

through the H2-A program to transport their crop to the mill where the

commodity (raw sugar) is recovered from the sugarcane. In Louisiana

alone, sugarcane provides $3 billion to the rural economy and supports

16,000 jobs.

During the 100-day harvest season, sugarcane farmers haul more than

500,000 loads of cane from the fields to the mills. That comes out to

5,000 loads per day and over 90% of these loads are delivered by

nearly 1,300 H2-A CDL drivers. For countless years, the Department of

Labor has allowed sugarcane specific Farm Labor Contractors to hire

these H2-A CDL drivers to perform this vital work, allowing the

industry to significantly improve efficiencies throughout the

harvesting process. This efficient business model has also resulted in

more intense road safety management that has demonstrably improved

road safety in Louisiana’s cane region.

In October 2019, the Department of Labor issued new H2-A guidance that

threatens to derail the sugarcane industry’s custom harvesting systems

and push the industry back to antiquated business practices that would

destroy the efficiency and safety gains that the industry has worked

hard to achieve. This guidance makes the H2-A program more restrictive

and cumbersome. In 2019, sugarcane farmers had tremendous problems

securing needed H2-A CDL drivers threatening the ability to get

sugarcane to the mill.

The United States Secretary of Labor has the statutory authority to

extend the definition of “agricultural labor” to the shipment of the

grower-owned sugarcane crop to the location where a marketable

commodity (raw sugar) is recovered from these crops. As such, and

because sugarcane growers retain ownership of their crop during

transportation to the mill, the recovery of raw sugar is the necessary

final step in harvesting the sugarcane crop.

Louisiana sugarcane operations provided by Farm Labor Contractors need

and must have access to CDL drivers through the H2-A program to remain

efficient.

Mike Strain, DVM

Commissioner

Louisiana Department of Agriculture and Forestry

(225) 922-1233