1AC- Plan

Plan: The United States Federal Government should substantially reduce its
statutory restrictions on legal immigration to the United States by granting legal
permanent residence and a path to citizenship for H-2A visa applicants and holders.
 1AC- Solvency
Contention one is Solvency- The plan solves

a. Legal permanent residence and a Path to Citizenship is key- without it fear of

deportation and the temporary nature of the visa ensures worker shortages
Oates, ’17: (Bryce Oates is a writer covering agriculture, conservation, ecology, politics and the
complicated relationship between human communities and the landscape,
http://www.dailyyonder.com/immigration-proposal-nothing-address-ag-worker-
shortage/2017/08/08/20745/, “IMMIGRATION PROPOSAL DOES NOTHING TO ADDRESS AG-
WORKER SHORTAGE”, August 8th, 2017) WM
farmers and worker groups alike say
While the Trump administration is getting behind a bill to limit immigration to highly skilled workers,
what the nation needs is a more reliable supply of agricultural workers. A path to citizenship is key , say
worker advocates. The Trump Administration’s latest dive into the immigration debate leaves farmers without
needed laborers while farmworker groups call for a permanent path to citizenship as a solution to the
agricultural labor crisis. To fill the labor need, farmers have turned to two controversial sources of labor for supporting the nation’s
vast vegetable, fruit, nut and livestock operations: hiring illegal immigrants and utilizing a “guestworker” visa program that allows immigrants to
work for a specific farm for up to 10 months before returning home. “ This
is a nation of immigrants, not of guestworkers,”
said said Bruce Goldstein, president of Farmworker Justice. “We have to address the reality that more
than half of farmworkers today are undocumented, that they live in constant fear for deportation, of being
removed from their jobs and their families.” Goldstein said the worker shortage is well documented.
“There’s a story in a major newspaper, across the media every day about the lack of agricultural workers
in the labor force,” he said. “This is difficult and productive work, work that’s the backbone of the food
system. Immigrant farmworkers, both legal and the undocumented, are the people working these jobs.”
The Agriculture Workforce Coalition is a network of farmers that is urging the Trump Administration to help solve the farm labor shortage. The
the problem with an inadequate labor supply affects both farmers and rural America in
coalition says
The economic health of food and fiber producers, and the rural communities in which they live, is
general.
threatened by the lack of a reliable, stable and legal workforce. Our farmers face growing shortages of
legally authorized and experienced workers each year. Jobs in agriculture are physically demanding,
conducted in all seasons and are often transitory. This shortage of labor negatively impacts our
economic competitiveness, local economies, and jobs. Reforms are necessary
to address the agricultural labor shortage. For farmers looking to hire additional workers, and for farmworkers looking for jobs,
one of the critical programs is the H2A Program. Administered by the Department of Labor, the H2A program provides temporary visas to
immigrant farm laborers as “guest workers,” usually for periods of 10-months or less. H2A visas tie a worker to a specific farm or labor
organization for the season, and then workers return to their native country, usually Mexico. “The H2A program is expanding, period,” said Dr.
Philip Martin, Professor of Agricultural and Resource Economics at the University of California, Davis. He edits Rural Migration News, has
served on several federal commissions, and testifies frequently before Congress. “H2A will continue to grow just like it has in the past decade.”
Graph via the Economic Policy Institute Martin says that the number of H2A workers has increased to replace geographically settled workers
who have long-term, on-farm jobs. “Farmworkers don’t move much,” he said. “Only 2% of farmworkers follow the harvest, as a lot of people
assume they do. They pretty much stay where they settle.” President Trump announced last week that he is supporting legislation that slashes the
number of permanent legal immigrants allowed into the nation from 1 million per year to 500,000. The legislation, proposed by Senators Tom
Cotton (R-AR) and David Perdue (R-GA), would change immigration rules to a “merit-based system” that favors English speakers, the highly
educated, and those with job skills that are in high demand. Farmworker Justice, using USDA and Department of Labor Statistics, estimates that
there are 2.5 million farmworkers laboring on our nation’s farms and ranches. Though the data is imperfect due to the difficulty of collecting
information from undocumented immigrants, the organization estimates that roughly 1.2 million to 1.75 million farmworkers are undocumented
and approximately 750,000 to 1.3 million farmworkers are United States citizens or lawful immigrants. The National Agriculture Worker Survey
finds that about 33% of farmworkers are United States citizens, 18% are lawful permanent residents and another 1% have other work
The economic consequences of the agriculture labor gap are huge , according to economists. Dr.
authorization.
Stephen G. Bronars, of Edgeworth Economics, has studied the economic impact of the farm labor
shortage. His report, A Vanishing Breed: How the Decline in U.S. Farm Laborers Over the Last Decade
Has Hurt the U.S. Economy and Slowed Production on American Farms, finds that the farm labor
shortage costs $3.1 billion a year in direct economic activity. : Bronars writes, “given that farm revenues
often trickle down to other industries in our economy , that $3.1 billion in additional farm
production would have led to almost $2.8 billion in added spending on non-farm services like
transportation, manufacturing, and irrigation each year. That spending would have created more
than 41,000 additional non-farm jobs in our economy annually .” The H2A guestworker system is not
a good solution to the farm labor shortage, according to both the farmers and farmworkers who testified at a House Judiciary
Committee Hearing on the issue in July. Farmers said that program is overly bureaucratic, and the administrative burden can lead to workers
arriving too late for their seasonal labor needs. Livestock producers, whose animals require daily labor rather than seasonal demands, criticize the
Farmworker groups don’t believe that H2A system adequately
program for not allowing a year-round labor option.
protects worker rights, and that H2A workers are burdened with excessive fees and predatory debts for
navigating the guestworker visa paperwork and transportation process. They are collaborating with House
and Senate Democrats to propose a different immigration process for needed agricultural laborers, the
Agricultural Worker Program Act. “The core issue, the solution to the long-term issue of agricultural employment, is
establishing a path to citizenship for farm workers ,” said Farmworker Justice President Goldstein. “The Agricultural
Worker Program Act accomplishes this goal and H2A doesn’t. This is fundamentally an issue of economic freedom, of democratic rights, and of
addressing the reality of the food system’s labor needs in a fair way.” The Agricultural Worker Program Act is being proposed both in the House
and Senate. Supporters include the United Farmworkers of America, Farmworker Justice, the Southern Poverty Law Center, Institute for
Agriculture and Trade Policy, Farm Labor Organizing Committee of the AFL-CIO, National Council of La Raza, and many other groups.

b. The plan grants more than 1 million agricultural workers LPR which ensures
a stable workforce
Justin Lessner, 10-30-2019, The House Just Introduced A Bipartisan Plan To Help Undocumented
Farmworkers But Will The White House Support It?, %publications%, https://wearemitu.com/things-that-
matter/a-bipartisan-bill-could-grant-legal-status-to-undocumented-workers-but-theres-a-catch/, 10-2-
2020//cmcs

A Bipartisan Plan To Help Undocumented Farmworkers But Will The White House Support It? BY JUSTIN LESSNER |
The House Just Introduced
The United States’ agricultural business is largely ran on the back of
OCTOBER 30, 2019 AT 2:25 PM GUS RUELAS / AP
undocumented foreign labor. In fact, more than 50% of those employed in agriculture are undocumented.
That means there are more than a million people living in the shadows but who a vital part of delivering
food to American households. Not only do they live in the shadows for fear of deportation but many are even too afraid to access much needed
healthcare or to speak out against employee abuse. To help address these very real concerns, a bipartisan group of lawmakers have been quietly working out the
Lawmakers have
details of a bill that could help. The bipartisan bill was announced on Wednesday and may actually have a chance at being passed.
struck a deal that would give legal status to hundreds of thousands of undocumented immigrant
farmworkers in exchange for stronger employee verification in the agricultural sector . Rep. Zoe Lofgren, D-San Jose,
who chairs the immigration subcommittee of the Judiciary Committee, and Rep. Jimmy Panetta, D-Carmel Valley, led negotiations on the deal with Republican Reps.
Doug LaMalfa of Richvale (Butte County) and Dan Newhouse of Washington state. “The men and women who work America’s farms feed the nation. But,
farmworkers across the country are living and working with uncertainty and fear, contributing to the destabilization of farms across the nation,” Lofgren said in a
statement. “Our bill offers stability for American farms.” If it passes the House, the bill still faces an uncertain future in the Senate . It’s
also unclear whether President Trump will back it. However, the bill would face a more uncertain fate in the Republican-controlled Senate. If 20 Republicans are
willing to put their names on the effort, it could show the reach of interest from the GOP side of the aisle to address a very specific portion of the immigrant workforce
that is crucial to many of their districts’ economies. In addition to Diaz-Balart’s participation in negotiations, another Republican at the table has been Rep. Dan
The bill could offer hope to more than a million people across
Newhouse of Washington, according to two congressional sources.
the US. Hundreds of thousands of undocumented workers already in California could be eligible to get on
a path to citizenship if the bill becomes law, and employers would be able to take advantage of the
reformed visa process to hire new foreign workers legally . If the bill can pass the House, one supporter in the Senate will be
California Democrat Dianne Feinstein. She said in a statement provided to The Chronicle that she will work to try to pass the legislation in the upper chamber.
“Our broken immigration system has created shortages of farm labor across California and the rest of our
country,” Feinstein said. “This bipartisan bill will fix that and bring farmworkers out of the shadows. It’s time we give farmers the help they need while protecting
the hardworking people who put food on our tables.” United Farm Workers, the union that represents agricultural workers, has come out in support of the bill.
According to a summary of the bill obtained by McClatchy, the so-called Farm Workforce Modernization Act would provide a pathway to legal status for
undocumented immigrants who have already been working in the farm and agriculture industry for at least two years and plan to continue in this sector. It would make
changes to the H2-A visa program, which farmers use to hire foreign nationals for seasonal agriculture work, to make it easier for employers to fill crucial workforce
gaps while providing more protections for the workers themselves. And as a sweetener for immigration hardliners, the measure would make E-Verify — the web-
based system that allows businesses to confirm whether their employees are eligible to work in the United States — mandatory for the agriculture sector. However,
because of the expansion of the E-Verify system not everyone is on-board with the legislation. “We are opposed to E-Verify in principle but as part of a compromise
for legalization and more workers, it’d be a sacrifice worth making,” said Cato policy analyst David Bier. Bier said he had heard that “a bipartisan group is close to a
deal” on the proposal. Some farmworker advocates are lobbying to grant farmworkers legal status without requiring future E-Verify checks, while some Republicans
want mandatory E-Verify use without granting legal status to any current workers. A position paper from the Farm Bureau last year said the group would consider
mandatory E-Verify in exchange for granting legal status to current workers and a better guest-worker visa program.
 1AC- Food Security
Contention two is Food Security -
There’s massive impending agriculture worker shortages-

a. Visa restrictions and lack of domestic labor

Weinraub 7/2
agriculture commodities journalist for Reuters Mark Weinraub, Julie Ingwersen, 7-2-2020, "U.S. farmers scramble
for help as COVID-19 scuttles immigrant workforce ," U.S., https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-usa-
wheat/u-s-farmers-scramble-for-help-as-covid-19-scuttles-immigrant-workforce-idUSKBN2431BQ

Ryan Haffner, owner of Kansas-based High Plains Harvesting, had planned for 10 workers with H-2A
visas to make up the bulk of his workforce when harvest began. But only four made it to the United States
in time. He described his American replacements as “very noncommittal and wishy washy. ” A laid-off oil
worker backed out before his first day, Haffner said. U.S. Custom Harvesters Inc, which represents convoy operators, said finding
employees was the No. 1 issue for the industry . The hiring difficulties are another headache for farmers
who are struggling to return to profitability after watching their net income fall by about 50% from the
2013 peak. Now, their earnings are once again in doubt as sales to China remain uncertain even after a Phase 1 trade deal. So far, the winter
wheat harvest was 41% complete as of Monday, in line with recent years. The spring wheat crop will be harvested starting in August. Even
the biggest farmers, who own their own equipment, were having trouble filling out their workforce with
Americans. Doug Zink, a North Dakota grower with 28,000 acres, was left shorthanded this spring as two farmhands
from South Africa did not arrive until late June. “We had a lot of trouble getting our foreign workers over
here,” he said. “They could not get flights.” If workers keep quitting, the wheat harvest in northern
stretches of the Plains and the harvest of the fall crops could be at risk. David Misener, owner of
Oklahoma-based Green Acres Enterprises, had planned on hiring two immigrants to fill out his four-
person crew. He struggled to find suitable replacements, with three hires quitting within a week of starting. “They could
not fathom doing it and making it work,” said Misener, who runs his combines on a route that stretches from Texas to North
Dakota from May into December. Misener said he is already looking for replacements for the two high school-aged brothers on his crew who will
drop off the trail when classes resume in August. “ My
hiring for the year is definitely not done,” he said. “I am going to
have to recruit somebody that doesn’t have to be in school.”

b. Coronavirus and an aging domestic workforce

Orion Donovan-Smith, 10-5-2020, As COVID-19 strains U.S. agriculture, Newhouse says immigration
reform more urgent than ever, %publications%, https://www.spokesman.com/stories/2020/jul/19/as-
covid-19-strains-us-agriculture-newhouse-says-i/, 10-2-2020//cmcs
WASHINGTON – Last December, before COVID-19 upended Americans’ lives, the House of Representatives accomplished something that had long eluded lawmakers, passing an immigration

As the pandemic
reform bill with significant support from both Democrats and Republicans that could give legal status to hundreds of thousands of unauthorized farm workers.

has devastated communities across the country, it has hit agricultural workers especially hard, exposing
the vulnerability of a critical part of the U.S. economy and the largely undocumented workforce the
nation relies on for its food supply. In an interview with The Spokesman-Review, Rep. Dan Newhouse
said the crisis has made the bill he spearheaded – which would also overhaul a guest worker program and
require employers to check workers’ legal status in a national database – more important than ever. But those
same exceptional circumstances make an already daunting legislative challenge even more difficult, according to immigration policy experts and the labor union that helped craft the bill. “In the
state of Washington, we’ve got a multibillion-dollar agricultural industry,” Newhouse, a Yakima Republican, said. “And we’ve been put in a very precarious position by depending on a
workforce that, largely, is here illegally.” Newhouse is a third-generation farmer and still operates an 850-acre farm near Sunnyside, where he said he employs 100 to 150 workers during the
harvest. About half of U.S. agricultural workers are unauthorized, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Newhouse’s bill, which he championed along with California Democratic
Rep. Zoe Lofgren, would allow some 325,000 people to earn legal status by working in agriculture for at least 10 years. That’s just a fraction of the estimated 11 to 12 million undocumented

immigrants living in the country, but if enacted it would be the first major reform to the agriculture workforce since
1986. Since Ronald Reagan signed the Immigration Reform and Control Act into law that year, granting legal status to some 2.7 million people, immigration has become an increasingly
partisan issue in Congress. While most of Newhouse’s fellow Republicans opposed his bill, 34 – notably from agricultural districts – voted for it, including all five GOP representatives from
Washington and Idaho. U.S. agriculture has relied on migrant workers for decades, especially since the bracero program, an agreement struck between the U.S. and Mexico during World War II,
brought millions of Mexican laborers to American farms starting in 1942. The program was ended in 1964, and a year later Congress passed a landmark immigration reform bill that eliminated
the national quota system that had limited the number of immigrants from Mexico. Yet while demand for workers remained, Congress didn’t expand legal channels for them to come to the U.S.
The combination of these factors was “the seed of illegal immigration” to the U.S., said Muzaffar Chishti, a senior fellow at the nonpartisan Migration Policy Institute. Immigration from Mexico
slowed after the 2008 economic crisis, and in recent years farmers have increasingly relied on the H-2A visa program, which lets foreign workers stay in the U.S. for up to 10 months. The
number of H-2A visas issued in Washington grew by more than 300 percent from 2010 to 2015. But Kate Tynan, senior vice president at the Northwest Horticultural Council, which represents

Our workforce is aging and fewer workers are entering

fruit growers, said the program’s wage structure has driven labor costs “artificially high.” “

the field to take their place. This has left the H-2A program as the only option for many tree fruit growers
to get the workers they need to grow and harvest their crops,” Tynan said. “We have already seen a number of growers go out of business in
recent years due to these wage pressures. Our growers simply cannot wait any longer for reform.” In March, Rep. Kim Schrier wrote to House appropriators to request a $6 million increase in a
federal grant program for states to support the H-2A program. The Sammamish Democrat noted the grant program was funded at a higher level a decade ago despite the number of H-2A
applications roughly doubling nationwide since 2010. Washington state now accounts for more than 10% of the nation’s H-2A workforce yet receives less than 3% of grant funding for the
program, Schrier wrote. The House appropriations subcommittee agreed to the funding increase July 13 and called for a report that could result in more funds directed to Washington state. Yet
employers complain of delays in the H-2A hiring process and the need to hire lawyers to navigate it, according to the American Farm Bureau Federation, an industry lobbying group. “Employers
have generally concluded that the H-2A program is too burdensome,” Chishti said. “And if there’s a supply of unauthorized workers, why use the H-2A program?” Newhouse’s bill would rework
the current H-2A rate-setting system, paying workers different wages based on their roles and limiting wage fluctuations. It also aims to streamline the visa program and cut processing times. The
legislation would also mandate the use of E-Verify, a government system for checking workers’ legal status. Employers and immigrant advocates have largely resisted efforts to make the system
mandatory, citing frequent errors and the U.S. economy’s de facto reliance on unauthorized workers. The bill would guarantee due process for workers who are wrongly rejected by the system.
The bill met opposition from the right, including from the conservative Heritage Foundation, which wrote that it “would bless the actions of aliens and agricultural employers who have ignored
the law.” It has also drawn criticism from the left. Edgar Franks, political and campaign director at Familias Unidas por la Justicia, a Burlington-based farm workers union, said the legislation
doesn’t do enough to protect workers in one of the most dangerous occupations. The union opposed what Franks called “a limited and complicated path to legal status,” calling instead for
amnesty for all undocumented immigrants. “I know there’s desperation to get something done for immigrants,” Franks said. “However, we feel that there is something better out there.” But Erik
Nicholson, national vice president at United Farm Workers, a larger union that helped craft the bill, said the urgency of the situation demanded a pragmatic approach. “Being right is easy. Getting
a bill passed in Congress is not,” Nicholson said. “We can have a righteous position and demand immediate legalization of all agricultural workers and stake that claim publicly, but it’s not going
to change a darn thing in the lives of workers for the next decade.” Nicholson described the difficulty of writing legislation that both parties could support, and that President Donald Trump could
conceivably sign, as “multiple needles we’ve got to thread.” Elaine Kamarck, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, a Washington think tank, said Congress’s failure to pass meaningful
immigration reform is less about the divide between the parties than divides within each party, with both Democrats and Republicans afraid of being ousted in primary elections if they
compromise. “Both parties have elements within them that polarize the issue,” Kamarck said, “and as long as the issue is incredibly polarized, nothing is going to move. And of course the
polarizer-in-chief is Donald Trump. As long as Trump’s around, nothing will happen.” With the general election less than four months away, members of both parties are less inclined to reach
across the aisle to get a bill passed. Democrats, who like their odds of winning the White House and maybe even control of the Senate, may want to hold out for more favorable political winds

But Newhouse said immigration reform for the country’s farm

and try to pass a more ambitious immigration reform package next year.

workers, whom the federal government has declared “essential” during the pandemic, can’t wait. The
nation’s agricultural counties have been hit especially hard by the virus – Yakima County now has the
highest per-capita rate of confirmed cases on the West Coast – as farm workers, many undocumented and
not eligible for government support, have continued to supply the nation’s food . “Having a multibillion-
dollar industry being dependent on an illegal workforce, in my mind, is just crazy,” Newhouse said. “But
it’s also not good for the communities to have this situation where people are undocumented.” The
pandemic, Newhouse said, has brought a “realization on the part of the American public that having a
stable source of food is truly a critical issue, it’s an issue of national security. To have the necessary labor
force in place to continue producing a stable supply of food is more important than ever.”

Worker shortages collapses the entire food supply chain – that ensures food
insecurity
Fiona Harvey 3/26– environment correspondent – March 26-2020, "Coronavirus measures could cause
global food shortage, UN warns," Guardian, https://www.theguardian.com/global-
development/2020/mar/26/coronavirus-measures-could-cause-global-food-shortage-un-warns
As governments impose lockdowns in countries across the world, recruiting seasonal workers will
become impossible unless measures are taken to ensure vital workers can still move around, while
preventing the virus from spreading. “Coronavirus is affecting the labour force and the logistical
problems are becoming very important,” said Torero. “We need to have policies in place so the labour
force can keep doing their job. Protect people too, but we need the labour force. Major countries have yet
to implement these sorts of policies to ensure that food can keep moving.” Countries such as the UK, with
a sinking currency and high level of imports, are also likely to see food price rises unless the government
takes action or retailers absorb some of the costs, he said. The most important role governments can
play is to keep the food supply chain operating, intervene to ensure there are enough workers, and
keep the global food markets from panicking, according to Torero. “If traders start to become nervous,
conditions will get difficult,” he said. “It just needs one big trader to make a decision [to disrupt the
supply of staple crops] and that will affect everywhere. Governments must properly regulate, that is their
biggest function in this situation. It’s very important to keep alive the food value chain: intervene to
protect the value chain [including the supply of workers] but not to distort the market.”

Only the plan solves - Immigrants are key to fill agriculture labor shortages- the
alternative is widespread farm collapse
Paul Dimare, 6/8, 6-8-2020, "The future of our food supply relies on immigrant farm workers,"
TheHill, https://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/politics/501658-the-future-of-our-food-supply-relies-on-
immigrant-farm-workers
The coronavirus pandemic has fundamentally transformed our way of life-- how we work, how we celebrate, how we grieve. But one thing
remains constant:
we still need to put food on the table for our families, and we rely on millions of
immigrant workers to do that. Yet even as food pantries are struggling to serve Americans lined up for miles, crops sit
unpicked in the field rotting. The problem isn’t the farmers. We support sound and coherent immigration
policies, especially ones that strengthen and stabilize our food supply chains. The problem is a lack of political will.
The shortage of farm workers is nothing new. Even before COVID-19, the agricultural sector was already experiencing extreme labor scarcity.
But the pandemic has certainly raised the stakes.Public health concerns and agricultural labor shortages have left
many farms on the brink of collapse, jeopardizing our ability to move crops from the fields to the
markets that need them. As the former chairman of the Florida Tomato Committee and one of the largest grower of fresh-market
tomatoes in the U.S., I have always been aware of the critical contributions that immigrants make to our economy and workforce. A
substantial 53 percent of current farm workers were born outside the country. Many of them are also
undocumented, with little protection, and no path to work authorization. They do hard work in harsh conditions – jobs that,
frankly, many Americans will not take . The key to addressing our current labor shortages lies not only
in maintaining a robust guest worker program , but also in repairing our broken immigration system so
as to protect our existing farm workers and farms . Some suggest that these agricultural jobs should be reserved for the
over 40 million American workers currently out of a job due to the pandemic. This sounds great in theory, but the reality is that the majority
of unemployed Americans will not fill these open positions . Most lack either the skill or an interest in
back-breaking agricultural labor. We know this because, in the ten weeks since America largely shut down, our
ability to find people to bring in our crops has become more difficult, not easier.

Food insecurity is the largest determinant of conflict based on 90 million peer-

reviewed articles – it causes failed states, terrorism, and war.
Elliot 18 [Charles, citing World Food Program USA, the single largest anti-hunger Humanitarian group
on Earth, “Winning the Peace: Hunger and Instability,”
https://buddhistglobalrelief.me/2018/02/11/winning-the-peace-hunger-and-instability/#_ftn1/RB]
An increasingly hungry world is increasingly unstable. A new report issued by the World Food Program
USA—Winning the Peace: Hunger and Instability—presents an unprecedented view into the dynamics
of the relationship between hunger and social instability.[1] Based on exhaustive interdisciplinary
queries of a database of 90,000,000 peer-reviewed journal articles, the report explores
the underpinnings and drivers of humanitarian crises involving food insecurity and conflict. The dominant
driver of today’s humanitarian crises is armed conflict. Ten of the World Food Program’s thirteen “largest
and most complex emergencies are driven by conflict”, and “responding to war and instability represents
80 percent of all humanitarian spending today … stretching humanitarian organizations beyond their
limits.”[2] Ongoing conflict not only drives humanitarian crises, but complicates the ability of
humanitarian organizations to reach those in need and to provide assistance. Violence, conflict, and
persecution have resulted in the displacement of 65,000,000 people, more than any other time since
World War II.[3] The average length of displacement is seventeen years. In such circumstances,
measures of food insecurity are nearly triple that found in other developing country settings.[4] The
current humanitarian situation confronts these stark realities: For the first time in a decade, the number
of hungry people in the world is on the rise. In 2016, 815 million people were undernourished, an
increase of 38 million people from 2015. Almost 500 million of the world’s hungry live in countries
affected by conflict. The number of people who are acutely food-insecure (in need of emergency
assistance) rose from 80 million in 2016 to 108 million in 2017—a 35 percent increase in a single year.
Over 65 million people are currently displaced because of violence, conflict and persecution—more
than any other time since World War II. For the first time in history, the world faces the prospect of four
simultaneous famines in northeast Nigeria, Somalia, South Sudan and Yemen. Each of these crises is
driven by conflict. Increased migration and the spilling of conflicts beyond borders has led to a
proliferation of “fragile states”—states defined by “the absence or breakdown of a social contract
between people and their government.” By 2030, between half and two-thirds of the world’s poor are
expected to live in states classified as fragile. While a decade ago most fragile states were low-income
countries, today almost half are middle-income countries. At the same time, the nature of conflict and
the global system of governance are undergoing transitions that undermine the international
community’s ability to address and reduce conflict. The report highlights the rise of non-state actors as
powerful participants in armed conflict while also recognizing the significance of activities such as the
weaponizing of information to undermine the legitimacy of traditional nation-state institutions. The report
also describes how threats such as food insecurity can drive recruitment for terrorists and rebels,
worsening destabilization. (Report, p.7) Military strength cannot adequately address these kinds of
threats. Rather, appropriate responses to such threats must address their actual nature. Kalashnikovs and
rocket-propelled grenades will never be a long-term solution to food insecurity-driven instability.
Recognition of this basic reality drives the use of so-called “smart power” in the form of foreign
assistance, especially food assistance and agricultural development, to address the underlying causes of
this instability. “If you don’t fund the State Department fully, then I need to buy more ammunition.” U.S.
Secretary of Defense, General James Mattis, Congressional testimony in 2013, when he was serving as
Commander of U.S. Central Command. “Show me a nation that cannot feed itself and I’ll show you a
nation in chaos.” Senator Pat Roberts (R-KS). The report supports the use of this kind of smart power by
empirically examining the relationship between food insecurity and conflict-driven instability.
Because food insecurity is also related to other forms of poverty and disruption, it is difficult to
rigorously establish that causal relationship. Thus, it often rests upon anecdotal evidence. Examples
include: failed government responses to drought as contributing to regime change in Ethiopia; the
contribution of food price riots to the overthrow of governments in Haiti and Madagascar in 2007-2008
and violent protests in dozens of other nations across the globe; food production and price shocks as
drivers of the unrest in the Arab Spring (e.g., food strikes nearly every week in Algeria in 2007-2008);
and the prolonged drought in Syria reducing agricultural yields and food supplies as a factor in its
ongoing crisis. More recently, the world’s attention is drawn to the “four looming famines in northeast
Nigeria, Somalia, South Sudan and Yemen” (Report, p. 7), each of which is torn by civil war and ethnic
conflict. As World Food Program officer Challis McDonough observed, “Almost all famines, at least in
our modern era, are manmade. Fundamentally, conflict is at the root of it[.]” While these are powerful
examples of the connections between food insecurity and instability, efforts to identify and understand the
important linkages require a broader base of evidence. WFP drew from a body of over 3,000 peer-
reviewed journal articles, finding the clear weight of evidence to establish the link between food
insecurity and instability.
 1AC- Worker’s Rights
Contention Three is Worker’s Rights
Increasing protections for migrant workers are an ethical obligation and key to
economic gains
Tom Jawetz, 9-28-2020, Tom Jawetz is the vice president of Immigration Policy at American Progress
"Immigrants as Essential Workers During COVID-19," Center for American Progress,
https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/immigration/reports/2020/09/28/490919/immig
rants-essential-workers-covid-19/
Chairwoman Lofgren (D-CA), Ranking Member Buck (R-CO), and members of the subcommittee, thank you for inviting me to testify before
you today on this important topic. My name is Tom Jawetz, and I am the vice president for Immigration Policy at the Center for American
Progress. American Progress is the nation’s foremost progressive think tank dedicated to improving the lives of all Americans through bold,
progressive ideas as well as strong leadership and concerted action. It is a particular honor to appear before the subcommittee for which I once
worked, although I would have loved to be sitting in 2141 of the Rayburn House Office Building rather than in my home office this afternoon. At
the same time, I recognize that my ability to do my job from the comfort and safety of my home in the middle of this global pandemic is a
privilege and a luxury; the same is not true for so many people. Over the past 6 1/2 months, while many of us have hunkered down in our homes,
millions of immigrants—just like millions of other Americans— have gone out at great personal risk to
themselves and their families to perform jobs that are essential to the functioning of the country. Based on the
most recent American Community Survey data from 2016 through 2018, the Center for American Progress estimates that there
are approximately 10.5 million undocumented immigrants in the country today, about 7 million of whom
are in the workforce.1 Of this number, nearly 3 in 4—an estimated 5 million people—are doing jobs deemed
essential to the nation’s critical infrastructure according to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and
International Security Agency’s (DHS CISA) latest guidance.2 Undocumented immigrants are performing essential jobs in many different
sectors of the workforce. An estimated 389,000 are working as farmworkers and food processors securing the
nation’s food supply, even as food processing plants became epicenters of the virus and agricultural areas are right now experiencing
some of the nation’s highest concentrations of coronavirus outbreaks.3 I hope every member of the subcommittee has seen the photographs of
farmworkers—as many as half of whom are undocumented— harvesting crops under a dark, orange-red sky, in evacuation
zones with dangerous air quality, using only their cell phones to light the way .4 There are also an estimated
225,000 undocumented health care workers serving us and our loved ones as doctors, nurses, and home health
aides, as well as an additional 190,000 undocumented individuals working not as health care providers but in
necessary custodial and administrative roles to ensure health care settings remain safe and open. 5
Millions of other undocumented immigrants are keeping grocery shelves stocked, packing warehouses,
and cleaning and sanitizing businesses that have stayed open so we can remain home and the country can
keep running. So much has changed over the past 6 1/2 months. For many people, the entire concept of an essential worker hardly existed
before this began. But over time, we have seen a growing appreciation among the public for the contributions and sacrifices that essential workers
are making for the country. And over the course of the pandemic, the concept of who qualifies as an essential worker also has evolved. Even
during the tightest lockdowns, while some states and localities adopted the DHS CISA guidance, many others adopted their own definitions. In
states such as California, New York, and Illinois, for instance, construction workers early on were deemed essential—even if they weren’t busy
Undocumented immigrants
retrofitting health care facilities—and that kept local economies from even greater economic damage.6
make up nearly 13 percent of the nation’s construction workforce, generating nearly $50 billion in national
gross domestic product (GDP) each year and helping families gain wealth and stability .7 CISA itself has updated its
guidance three times and, in its most recent version, recognizes the essential work provided by the widest assortment of educators, from preschool
through college and university settings, whether in person or remote.8 Version 4.0 of the guidance similarly recognizes that dependent caregivers,
including those who work in child care and elder care, provide an essential community function. Every parent and employer in the country knows
that schools and dependent care providers are critical to getting Americans safely back to work. In recent years, while every state in the country
has experienced some teacher shortages,9 an estimated 8,800 Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) recipients are working in K-12
schools. Immigrants also play an important role in the country’s early childhood workforce and play an outsize role as home health and personal
care aides.10 But while the country has become increasingly aware of the essential work that immigrants—including undocumented immigrants
—are doing during the pandemic, it is important to recognize that this work didn’t suddenly become essential during the pandemic, these people
didn’t suddenly start doing this work during the pandemic, and many of these jobs didn’t suddenly become hazardous to the health and safety of
workers during the pandemic. This is work and these are workers who have long been essential to the functioning
of this country and its economy, and frequently they have done this work—often at significant personal
risk—with far too little recognition or reward. Just as these folks are doing essential work now and have long done essential work, we know
their work will be critical going forward, both as we continue to deal with the coronavirus—for who knows how long—and as we take steps to
begin to rebuild and strengthen our economy. The U.S. House of Representatives took a number of important steps in
this regard when it passed the Health and Economic Recovery Omnibus Emergency Solutions (HEROES) Act in May.11 Not only would the
legislation extend—without regard to immigration status—critical financial support to all tax filers as well as free coronavirus testing, treatment,
and vaccines, but it also offers automatic extensions of work authorization to people with DACA and Temporary Protected Status (TPS). That
provision has taken on heightened importance as a 9th Circuit panel recently cleared the way for the administration to move forward with its
plans to end TPS for hundreds of thousands of recipients and DHS has made substantial changes to the DACA program—likely in anticipation of
Extending protections to DACA
ending those protections—without first doing the analysis required by the U.S. Supreme Court.12
recipients and TPS holders is of paramount importance, not only to the nearly 1 million people who rely
upon those protections every day to live and work lawfully in the country but also to the more than
500,000 U.S.-citizen children in their households. 13 It is of additional importance to the country as a
whole, given that more than 550,000 DACA recipients and TPS holders, whose permission to work in this
country is under constant threat from DHS, are working in jobs that DHS itself deems to be essential to
the critical infrastructure of the nation .14 Importantly for today’s hearing and for future policy debates, the HEROES Act includes
still another provision that would grant temporary protection from deportation and work authorization to
undocumented immigrants serving as essential workers . Those provisions should be in any package passed by Congress
before the current session ends. But Congress can and must do even better . Regardless of whether another coronavirus relief
package becomes law before the end of this year, the next Congress will have to act swiftly to put in place a comprehensive national recovery
package that rises to the continuing challenge of fighting the coronavirus pandemic and that puts us on a path to economic recovery. For this
it must reach historically marginalized
recovery to be sufficiently dynamic and durable, as well as inclusive and equitable,
communities that have been both disproportionately affected by the twin public health and economic
crises that we are in and excluded from past recovery efforts. For undocumented immigrants who have
long contributed to this country in myriad ways—and certainly for those who have performed essential work during this
pandemic as well as for their families— such legislation must include permanent protection and a path to citizenship .
The American people understand and support this. Several months ago, Hart Research Associates conducted a nationwide poll that showed strong
support—73 percent who support compared with 22 percent who oppose —for providing a path to
citizenship for undocumented essential workers .15 Voters agreed with such a policy both because they recognized that such
workers had stepped up for our country when we needed them most and had earned the opportunity to become permanent members of the
immigrant workers who were essential in the pandemic will similarly be essential
American family, and because
to rebuilding our economy going forward. Clearly, the benefits of permanent lawful status to these
individuals and their families would be tremendous . The average undocumented immigrant in the country
today has lived here for 14 years. 16 This is their home, it is where millions of them have chosen to raise
their families, and it is long past time that we recognized them as fully woven into the fabric of American
life. But the benefits of granting lawful status and eventually citizenship will also be felt throughout the
U.S. economy. A range of studies have shown that granting legal status first and citizenship second
contributes to higher wages and higher productivity for workers. This in turn leads to more tax revenue
and more spending in the local economy, boosting consumption, and, once again, increasing taxes paid.17
When the White House Council of Economic Advisers in 2014 analyzed the Obama administration’s efforts to create the Deferred Action for
Parents of Americans (DAPA) initiative and to expand DACA, they concluded that extending protection from deportation and work authorization
to approximately 5 million people would have increased the total productivity of the U.S. labor force per worker by between one-tenth and one-
quarter of 1 percent and increased average wages of native-born workers by 0.1 percent over 10 years.18 These gains would have come because
once undocumented immigrants receive work authorization and have greater certainty about their future
in the United States, they can get more specialized jobs better matched to their skills, which would pave
the way for increased output and increased wages in the long run for all workers. They are also more likely to
make investments in themselves and their communities , starting new businesses and pursuing more education or vocational
training, which could have positive spillover effects for everyone. At the time, the Center for American Progress also estimated that DAPA would
have resulted in a cumulative GDP increase of $164 billion, an $88 billion increase in incomes for all Americans, and the creation of more than
20,000 jobs each year over a 10-year period.19 Higher wages would also translate into greater revenue paid into the Social Security and Medicare
Permanent legal status also helps undocumented workers—who are
systems, shoring them up for years to come.20
disproportionately subject to poor wages and working conditions 21—receive necessary and appropriate
workplace protections, which will create the foundation for a strong and resilient labor market for all. 22
Think back to March and April, when the country first became really aware of how serious this pandemic was. At the time, there was a real sense
of common purpose and shared sacrifice. It was clear in our communities, as people stood and clapped during shift changes at the hospital and
signs thanking essential workers sprang up in people’s yards and on billboards outside of shuttered restaurants and places of worship. Six months
in, even as the number of new coronavirus infections and deaths each day is so many times greater than it was in those early months, it is often
hard to feel that same sense of unity. But we have now lost more than 200,000 fellow Americans to this virus. 23 Tens of millions of people have
lost jobs and are unemployed—many no longer looking for work, as our failure to bring the virus into check has largely kept the economy in a
deep freeze. The main lesson of a pandemic—a lesson we learned, then forgot, but need to learn once more—is that we can only beat it if we
A
work together. And just as we must all come together to defeat the coronavirus, we must all come together to help rebuild the country.
coronavirus relief or economic recovery package that once more leaves millions of people behind—
including those who have put so much on the line and have already lost so much—will come up short of
what the country truly needs and what people ultimately deserve.

Immigrant farm workers don’t have accesses to worker benefits- that leads to poor
working conditions, health, wages, labor abuse, and increased stress.
Farmworker Justice Fund, Inc N/D https://www.guidestar.org/profile/52-1196708

Farmworkers, people who labor on farms and ranches, experience poor wages and working
conditions, hazardous jobs, poor health and access to health care, and other obstacles
to their health and well-being. Laws that protect most workers discriminate against
farmworkers, depriving them of protections regarding wages, benefits, occupational
safety, and other abuses. Laws that do apply are not adequately enforced. Immigration
policy has subjected farmworkers and their family members to great harm. A majority
of farmworkers are undocumented and therefore are very vulnerable in the workplaces
and live in fear of detection and deportation . An increasing number are guestworkers,
on temporary work permits, subjected to unequal treatment without a path to
immigration status and citizenship . The broken immigration system needs reform. The vibrant organizations that are
organizing farmworkers have limited resources and need assistance. Read less Our programs SOURCE: Self-reported by organization
What are the organization's current programs, how do they measure success, and who do the programs serve? Immigration and Labor Policy;
Occupational Safety; Health Promotion Our organization serves farmworkers -- people who labor on farms and ranches and their family members
-- to help them improve immigration policy, wages and working conditions, occupational and environmental safety, and health and access to
health care. Our programs include: Helping farmworkers improve immigration policy and status. The lack of legal
immigration status for many farmworkers makes them extremely vulnerable to many
abuses and labor violations. FJ advocates for positive legislation on immigration to grant an opportunity for legal immigration
status for undocumented farmworkers and their family members. We help farmworker organizations defend against harmful policies regarding
We work to reduce abuses under the agricultural guestworker program, the H-
immigration.

2A temporary foreign agricultural worker program. Improving farmworker wages and working conditions.
For many years, agricultural workers have lived below the poverty line, often
suffering theft of wages, and other labor abuses . Our advocacy and litigation efforts work to improve labor
policies and enforce labor laws, especially the reform of the farm labor contracting system. Our corporate social responsibility initiatives involve
cooperation with progressive agricultural employers to offer farmworkers a voice at work and good working conditions. We also collaborate
closely with farm labor unions seeking to improve labor standards through collective bargaining. Strengthening the occupational safety and health
Farmworkers are exposed unnecessarily to many health and safety risks
of farmworkers.

when working in fields and orchards . FJ works to win greater protections for farmworkers from preventable work-
related deaths, injuries and illnesses. We have a long history of advancing safety standards regarding pesticides. We also educate farmworkers
about how to improve occupational safety. Promoting the health of farmworkers and their families. FJ has pioneered several programs to build
the capacity of local organizations to provide farmworkers with information about health and safety issues. Our prevention project has trained
hundreds of farmworkers to be "promotores de salud” (lay health promoters), who in turn, have educated tens of thousands of colleagues
regarding prevention of illness and injury, access to health care and their rights at work. Farmworker Justice (FJ) is a coalition-builder,
collaborating with hundreds of organizations in almost every state to empower farmworkers to improve their health, labor rights, immigration
status, and occupational safety. Our litigation addresses systemic abuses by employers who violate labor laws and federal government agencies
that violate their obligations.
 1AC- Rural Economies
Contention four is Rural Economies- they’re struggling now
Current Policies kill rural economies
Astley 20 Suzette Astley “Trump’s Economy Is Bad for Rural America.” The Gazette, 13 Feb. 2020,
www.thegazette.com/subject/opinion/letters-to-the-editor/trumps-economy-is-bad-for-rural-america-
20200213. Accessed 4 Oct. 2020.
Trump has been in office for just three years, but there has been substantial job growth in each of the past nine years. And, growth has slowed
during the Trump administration from its level at the end of the Obama administration, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Barack
If economic life has
Obama inherited the Great Recession of 2008, but was still able to get the economy on a positive course.
improved for some Americans, have all benefited equally? The simple answer is “no.” Though poverty
levels overall decreased across the country in 2017 and 2018, they actually increased in about a third of
rural counties, according to a U.S. Census survey. Donald Trump’s plans for the future will make life
more painful in rural areas . Trump has waged war on the Affordable Care Act, which provides health care for thousands of previously
uninsured individuals, protections for those with preexisting conditions and allows adult children to stay on their parents’ insurance. Trump’s
proposed budget includes cuts for the Children’s Health Insurance Program, food stamps, and Medicaid, all programs that provide basic
necessities for those in need. The Trump budget also cuts crop insurance by $25 billion. All the cuts will fall hardest on those struggling the most,
and in Iowa those people are disproportionately in rural areas. Iowa cannot afford four more years of Donald Trump no matter what he claims.

a. Agricultural labor shortages cost rural economies billions of dollars

Obrien, Krause, Krause 18 Prepared by: WAEES Commissioned by: American Farm Bureau
Federation Patrick O’Brien John Kruse Darlene Kruse “Economic Impact of Immigration.” Fb.Org, 2018,
www.fb.org/issues/immigration-reform/agriculture-labor-reform/economic-impact-of-immigration.
Accessed 4 Oct. 2020.
Why is Labor Important to Farmers? Agriculture needs anywhere from 1.5 -2 million hired workers . Labor costs account
for 48 percent of the variable production costs for fresh fruits and 35 percent of variable costs for fresh vegetables. The current labor situation is
most acute for delicate berries and easily bruised produce. Harvesting costs for strawberries, blackberries and cherries account for about 60% to
66% of total production costs, making labor the primary harvest expense . People are needed to judge which fruit are ready to be
picked and which need to be left to ripen. Many migrants who begin their careers as farm laborers move onto other sectors of the economy or less
demanding positions after several years.
This progression leads to farmers often being the first to bear the negative
economic impacts of decreased border crossings and migrant labor shortages. At least 50-70 percent of
farm laborers in the country today are unauthorized . Few U.S. workers are willing to fill available farm
labor jobs. Challenges of the H-2A Program 72 percent of growers reported that workers arrived on
average of 22 days after the “date of need.” The program provides less than 4 percent of the hired workers
needed in agriculture. Entering into the H-2A program has been found to increase the obstacles that farmers face in order to hire and
maintain employees. Only 8 percent of employers report that they were audited before they participated in the H-2A program, but 35 percent
report being audited since entering the program. An NCAE survey found that 47 percent of employers were “not at all satisfied” or only “slightly
satisfied” with the H-2A program. Farmers and even professional H-2A agents are routinely forced to hire lawyers to help them get through the
process successfully. Labor Impacts on Imports A PNAE study found that when comparing the two year periods between 1998-2000 and 2010-
2012, the share of fresh produce consumed in America that was imported rose by 73.9 percent. Without
an adequate supply of labor
American farmer are at a competitive disadvantage . Americans ate 6.6 billion more pounds of imported fresh fruits and
vegetables in 2010-2012 than they ate from 1998-2000. The farm labor shortage explains as much as $3.3 billion in
missed GDP growth in 2012. It also accounts for $1.3 billion in farm income that wasn’t realized that
year. Had U.S. growers not faced labor challenges —and been able to maintain the share of fresh produce
they provided to the domestic market from 1998-2000— America would have boasted more than 89,000 more jobs in
2012. American GDP would have grown by almost $12.4 billion in 2012 and produced almost $4.9
billion more in annual farm revenues. Almost 75 percent of that $12.4 billion in GDP growth would have
been due to increased economic activity in the non-farm parts of the economy that year . Effects of Enforcement
Only Immigration Reform The impacts of an enforcement only approach to immigration would be detrimental to the agricultural industry . If
agriculture were to lose access to all undocumented workers, agricultural output would fall by $30 to $60
billion. The enforcement only option would increase food prices by 5-6 percent, with domestic fruit production off by 30-61 percent and
vegetable production down 15-31percent. The livestock sector would also suffer lost production in the 13-27 percent range. The ideal approach
would be enforcement with an adjustment of status and a redesigned guest worker program. This approach would result in no increase in food
prices. There would be minimal decreases in fruit, vegetable, grain, and livestock production.

That causes widespread US economic decline-

a. The agricultural sector is critical to supporting the US economy

Klobuchar 13 Joint economic committee Vice chair Amy Klobuchar THE ECONOMIC
CONTRIBUTION OF AMERICA’S FARMERS AND THE IMPORTANCE OF AGRICULTURAL
EXPORTS.
America’s farmers and ranchers make an important contribution to the U.S. economy by ensuring a safe
and reliable food supply, improving energy security and supporting job growth and economic
development. Agriculture is particularly important to the economies of small towns and rural areas, where farming
supports a number of sectors, from farm machinery manufacturers to food processing companies. Because of increasing agricultural productivity,
access to world markets will be critical to the industry’s continued success. Ninety-five percent of the world’s potential consumers live outside of
the United States, and population growth in the decades ahead will be concentrated in developing countries.1 As these countries grow and their
citizens’ incomes rise, their demand for meat, dairy and other agricultural products will increase. 2 This report discusses the contribution of
farmers and ranchers to the U.S. economy . It describes the critical role of agricultural exports and the opportunities
and challenges agricultural exporters face . It concludes by outlining several policy recommendations designed to facilitate
agricultural export opportunities and amplify the already significant economic impact of America’s farmers. U.S.
farmers, ranchers and food producers are wellpositioned to capture an increasing share of the growing world market for agricultural products.
The United States is the world’s leading exporter of agricultural products.3 At $141.3 billion, agricultural
exports made up 10% of U.S. exports in 2012. 4 Since 1960, the United States has posted a trade surplus in agriculture. Last year, this surplus
totaled $38.5 billion.5 Capturing a growing share of the world market for agricultural products will benefit the entire economy. Agricultural
exports currently support nearly one million jobs across the country.6 Despite recent success, challenges remain for U.S. agriculture, including
uncertainty about future farm policy. U.S. agricultural exporters often confront barriers imposed by countries that keep U.S. products from
reaching their target markets. Small and beginning farmers, ranchers and processors may face added burdens in navigating the complexities
involved in exporting their products. America’s deteriorating transportation infrastructure and uncertainty regarding the agricultural workforce
because of unsettled immigration policy add to the challenges facing agricultural exporters. Addressing these challenges will benefit U.S.
agriculture and the economy overall. The Economic Impact of U.S. Agriculture The United States has a robust farm economy. Last year, total
farm cash receipts exceeded $390 billion, including $219.6 billion in cash receipts for crops and $171.7 billion in cash receipts for livestock and
related products. 7 Some products such as wheat, coarse grains, cotton and soybeans are sold in bulk either in the United States or abroad, while
most others undergo various levels of processing. Wheat flour, soybean oil, meats, cereals and dairy products are examples of products that
receive additional processing prior to their final sale. After accounting for production expenses, net farm income totaled $112.8 billion in 2012,
about 125% higher than a decade prior.8 SEPTEMBER 2013 THE ECONOMIC CONTRIBUTION OF AMERICA’S FARMERS SEPTEMBER
A
2013 Joint Economic Committee Democratic Staff ▪ G-01 Dirksen Senate Office Building ▪ Washington, DC ▪ 202-224-5171 Page 2
successful agricultural sector supports economic growth overal l. By producing a wide variety of foods inexpensively,
including fruits, vegetables, grains, meat and dairy products, America’s farmers and ranchers ensure a safe and reliable
domestic food supply. This sector also improves U.S. energy security and reduces dependence on foreign
oil through the production of biofuels and the development of other alternative sources of energy . These new
sources of energy can help reduce costs for businesses and consumers. For example, some studies have found that an increased supply of biofuels
reduces gas prices, especially as biofuel production technology improves. 9 A healthy farm economy is especially important to small towns and
rural areas. 10 Farmers and ranchers invest in their operations, supporting jobs in farm machinery manufacturing and other industries, and they
purchase goods and services from local businesses. High levels of farm production, in turn, improve the prospects for downstream businesses
such as food processing companies and biofuel refineries. Businesses up and down the agricultural product supply chain have benefited in recent
years as a result of the strong agricultural economy.11 An increase in sales of organic, specialty and bio-based products, as well as a recent
expansion of agritourism, has contributed to this success.12 The role of exports: Exporting is particularly important for agriculture, since growth
in demand for agricultural products in the coming decades is expected to come largely from developing countries. U.S. agriculture has been
successful in exporting its products, even as other industries have struggled recently in the global market. While agriculture comprised less than
5% of gross domestic product (GDP) over the 2007 to 2011 period , agricultural products as a share of total exports hovered
around 10%.13 (Figure 1) According to a U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) model , each $1 billion
of agricultural exports supported 6,800 American jobs in 2011 . 14 These jobs include positions on farms, in the food processing industry, in the trade and transportation sector and in
other supporting industries.15 In general, high-value (processed) exports supported more jobs and economic activity per dollar of exports than bulk exports of raw products.16 Assuming the number of jobs supported by each $1 billion of agricultural exports stayed within a range of the values
estimated for 2010 and 2011, U.S. agricultural exports supported nearly one million jobs in 2012.17 Recent Trends in Agricultural Exports In 2012, U.S. agricultural exports—including both bulk and high-value products—totaled $141.3 billion, the highest level on record.18 This represented
a modest 1.5% increase in the real value of agricultural exports over 2011 but a more significant increase when compared with total agricultural exports in prior years. As Figure 2 shows, the real value of U.S. agricultural exports has increased substantially over the past decade, due largely to
rising demand for food and other agricultural products in developing countries, especially China. 19 The continued post-recession gains in the value of agricultural exports can also be attributed to currently high farm commodity prices and heightened demand for biofuels.20 Export products:
Since 1990, high-value agricultural exports (which include consumer-ready products and processed goods used as inputs by other industries) have made up the largest share of agricultural exports. 21 Last year, high-value exports accounted for about $89 billion of agricultural exports (63%),
while bulk products accounted for about $52 billion (37%) of exports.22 Grains and feeds accounted for nearly one-quarter of agricultural exports in 2012, representing $32 billion in export sales, while soybean exports totaled approximately $25 billion and made up 17.5% of export sales.
Red meats accounted for nearly 10% of agricultural exports, as did animal feeds and oil meal, while the following products each made up roughly four to five percent of exports: tree nuts and preparations, fruits, cotton and linters, vegetables, poultry, sugar and tropical products and dairy
products.23 Table 1 provides additional detail on agricultural exports by product. Last year corn exports amounted to just under 30% of grain and feed exports overall and wheat exports were slightly over 25% of these exports.24 Grain and feed exports overall were down sharply in 2012, a
result of last summer’s drought, but they are expected to rebound in future years.25 The United States remains by far the world’s largest corn exporter, a position it continued to hold in 2012 despite the dip in corn production.26 While grain and feed exports declined last year, soybean exports
soared, increasing by over 35%. Global demand for soybeans, as well as soybean oil and soybean meal, is expected to continue to grow substantially in the coming years.27 Several other categories of products posted gains of at least 50% over the 2009 to 2012 period: dairy products, hides
and skins, cotton and linters, tree nuts and preparations, sugar and tropical products and red meats.28 There has been a dramatic increase in the share of meat products exported over the past several decades. In 1990, the shares of beef, poultry and pork production (by weight) that were
exported were 4.4%, 5.2% and 1.6%, respectively; however, by 2012, these shares had increased to 9.4%, 18.9% and 23.1%.29 Export markets: There have been significant changes over the past two decades in the top markets for U.S. agricultural exports. (Figure 3) Twenty years ago, just
one percent of U.S. agricultural export sales came from China, and this share had only increased to four percent by 2002.30 By 2012, China was the top destination for U.S. agricultural exports, purchasing over $25 billion in products and accounting for over 18% of sales.31 This dramatic
increase can be attributed to population and income growth in China, and to its accession to the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 2001. 32 Rounding out the top five export destinations in 2012 were Canada, Mexico, Japan and the European Union. Japan, the top destination for U.S.
agricultural exports as recently as 2001, has seen its share drop from about 20% in 1992 to under 10% last year. Canada was the leading U.S. agricultural THE ECONOMIC CONTRIBUTION OF AMERICA’S FARMERS SEPTEMBER 2013 Joint Economic Committee Democratic Staff ▪
G-01 Dirksen Senate Office Building ▪ Washington, DC ▪ 202-224-5171 Page 4 export destination for much of the first decade of the 21st century before being surpassed by China. Exports across the states: The value of exports varies significantly across the states. (Table 2) In 2011, the most
recent year for which state-by-state agricultural export data are available, California led the way with nearly $18 billion in exports, followed by Iowa, Illinois, Texas, Nebraska and Minnesota. The states with the lowest values in 2011 were Alaska, Rhode Island and New Hampshire.

14.2% from 2010 to 2011, and all fifty states posted gains. Wyoming, Montana, Idaho and Oregon increased their exports
Nationally, agricultural exports increased by

by the greatest amount on a percentage basis from 2010 to 2011, with all of these states increasing exports by over 30%. Among the six largest
agricultural exporting states, Nebraska exports increased by the most in percentage terms (21.7%). Over the decade from 2001 to 2011,
Wisconsin, Iowa and Minnesota saw the greatest percentage gains. Challenges to Further Increasing Agricultural Exports and Possible Solutions
Growth in overseas demand will open up new opportunities, and U.S. exporters have the potential to capture a significant share of the expanding
market. However, challenges remain that could keep the United States from taking advantage of these growth opportunities . These
challenges include uncertainty about long-term farm polic y, trade barriers imposed by foreign countries, issues facing small
and beginning farmers, ranchers and processors, the deterioration of U.S. transportation infrastructure and uncertainty in the
agricultural workforce resulting from an unsettled immigration policy.

There are a number of actions Congress can take to facilitate export opportunities for America’s farmers, ranchers and agricultural producers.
Options include: · Enacting a long-term farm bill to provide certainty for U.S. agriculture; · Pushing for provisions that reduce barriers to
agricultural exports; · Promoting export opportunities for small and beginning farmers, ranchers and processors; · Investing in transportation
infrastructure; and · Enacting comprehensive immigration reform to bring stability to the agricultural
workforce. Enacting a long-term farm bill to provide certainty for U.S. agriculture. Congress typically reauthorizes agricultural export initiatives and other USDA programs through fiveyear farm bills. The most recent full reauthorization of these programs occurred in
2008, and the fiscal cliff legislation passed at the beginning of this year extended most of these programs through September 2013 (though this extension did not fund a number of programs that had budgetary baselines that expired on or before September 30th of last year, including some
programs that help beginning farmers and aid producers in recovering from disasters). Congress has yet to pass a new five-year THE ECONOMIC CONTRIBUTION OF AMERICA’S FARMERS SEPTEMBER 2013 Joint Economic Committee Democratic Staff ▪ G-01 Dirksen Senate
Office Building ▪ Washington, DC ▪ 202-224-5171 Page 5 farm bill to provide certainty to agricultural exporters who use programs that facilitate export opportunities, including market development programs, credit guarantee programs and direct export subsidies. The USDA’s Market Access
Program and Foreign Market Development Program are particularly beneficial to exporters. In June, the Senate passed its version of the farm bill (S. 954), and, in July, the House of Representatives passed its version (H.R. 2642), though H.R. 2642 excluded the nutrition portion that is
traditionally included as part of the farm bill. Both bills would reauthorize valuable export assistance programs, as well as create a new Under Secretary of Agriculture responsible for export issues. Quickly reconciling the two bills and enacting a long-term farm bill would provide certainty to
agricultural exporters. The final legislation should include both farm and nutrition programs. Pushing for provisions that reduce barriers to agricultural exports. Agricultural exporters often encounter trade barriers. Despite some progress, average agricultural tariffs remain substantially higher
than those imposed on other products.33 Moreover, unpredictable and unscientific applications of sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) measures can create a significant burden for exporters, in particular for producers and processors of meat products. 34 The perishable nature of food products
means that any delays in adjudicating claims could damage or destroy the products. 35 Pushing for lower average tariffs on agricultural products, as well as terms that ensure that SPS measures are not used inappropriately to keep U.S. goods out of overseas markets, would help exporters. The
President’s Export Council included this issue among its ten recommendations to the President in March, calling for the creation of a rapid response mechanism to adjudicate SPS-related claims. Furthermore, funding for the Technical Assistance for Specialty Crops program, which assists
specialty crop producers facing SPS-related export challenges, and the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, which works with both domestic exporters and foreign governments to work through SPS issues, would facilitate exports. Promoting export opportunities for small and
beginning farmers, ranchers and processors. Overseas markets offer tremendous growth opportunities for small and beginning farmers, ranchers and agricultural processors. These individuals and businesses face particular challenges in exporting their products. They may not be able to
finance losses of a shipment at the border if a country imposes trade barriers, and they are more likely to lack the resources to identify and address such barriers.36 In addition, small farmers and food producers face many of the same challenges that small businesses in other industries face in
exporting. For example, compared with larger businesses, they may have limited knowledge of foreign markets or technical expertise regarding export procedures. The Export Promotion Act, enacted in 2010 as part of the Small Business Jobs Act, connects small businesses with export
promotion and outreach resources through the Department of Commerce to help them expand into new markets. This law also expands the outreach program through the Department’s Rural Export Initiative to ensure that small businesses located in rural areas know about available export-
promotion services. Improving export opportunities for small farmers and agricultural producers could contribute to increasing exports overall. Investing in transportation infrastructure. America’s deteriorating transportation infrastructure may inhibit agricultural export growth.37 The
agricultural sector relies on various forms of transportation infrastructure to move products from farms and factories to consumers at home and abroad, including roads, rails and ports. Inland transportation infrastructure is particularly important for agricultural exporters. However,
infrastructure surveys show that the United States is falling behind in investing in and maintaining its transportation infrastructure compared to global competitors. 38 In the past year, inadequate investment in harbor maintenance and other water infrastructure negatively affected exporters
who rely on the Mississippi River and the Great Lakes to transport THE ECONOMIC CONTRIBUTION OF AMERICA’S FARMERS SEPTEMBER 2013 Joint Economic Committee Democratic Staff ▪ G-01 Dirksen Senate Office Building ▪ Washington, DC ▪ 202-224-5171 Page 6 their
products.39 According to the American Society of Civil Engineers, the United States needs to spend $3.6 trillion to bring its infrastructure “into good repair” by 2020. 40 Passing a long-term surface transportation reauthorization bill, improving water infrastructure and dedicating resources to

S. infrastructure.
maintaining existing infrastructure would improve U.S. export capability. Establishing a national infrastructure bank and authorizing the issuance of bonds to fund projects are examples of potential public-private partnerships that could strengthen U.

Investing in new infrastructure and maintenance in rural areas, as well as taking steps to crack down on “captive shipping” in the railroad industry
(which drives up prices for businesses), are steps that could improve inland transportation infrastructure .
Enacting comprehensive
immigration reform to bring stability to the agricultural workforce . Uncertainty regarding the agricultural
workforce stemming from an unsettled immigration policy adds to challenges facing agricultural
exporters. Foreign-born workers are critical to U.S. agriculture, making up 72% of the workforce. 41
Seasonal and temporary workers are especially vital. 42 Many of the positions these immigrants and temporary residents
fill would not otherwise be filled by native-born workers .43 The Senate-passed comprehensive immigration reform bill (S.
744) would establish a new agricultural worker visa program to help ensure that the agricultural industry has the workers it needs to harvest
crops, raise livestock and produce products for export. The legislation also creates a pathway to citizenship for the roughly 11 million
undocumented immigrants currently in the country, many of whom work in agriculture . This legislation would benefit the
agricultural sector and the economy overall.

b. Rural economies are vital to the US economy- the plan solves by revitalizing
rural economies and the agricultural sector
O’Brien 13 – Doug, Deputy Under Secretary for USDA Rural Development, 1-22-13, Strong Rural
Communities, Stronger America, USDA, http://blogs.usda.gov/2013/01/22/strong-rural-communities-
stronger-america/
Last week, the Department hosted several members of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) at USDA
headquarters in Washington to highlight the findings of a
new report, Promoting Growth in All Regions, that says investments in
rural places are vital for aggregate national economic growth and in many cases, such investments have found that rural
regions have, on average, enjoyed faster growth than urban regions. For an OECD policy brief that outlines the report’s findings visit this link. In
this time of economic challenges, the United States and other members of OECD cannot leave significant growth
opportunities in rural regions untapped. The authors of the OECD report are in Washington this month to
launch the report and urge policy makers not to overlook this reality when crafting economic policy for
the country. President Obama and Agriculture Secretary Vilsack have long believed that “strong rural communities are key to
a stronger America.” This study provides rigorous research and explanation for why regional rural
economies are so important to a nation’s overall economic health. While this report is certainly not the
first study to examine the importance of strengthening rural regions, it is notable for its comprehensive,
longitudinal, and cross-national analysis. The report’s authors point out that overlooking the economies of
these regions may constitute a missed opportunity for significant economic growth. Missed growth
opportunities are also missed revenue opportunities for governments facing budgetary shortfalls and
rising deficits. Policy experts must develop comprehensive policy packages that integrate investments in infrastructure, human capital and
the labor force to improve rural economies. Additionally, regions must identify their local assets and build a development plan based on those
assets. Many US regions are leading the way in developing such place-based growth strategies. A second recent OECD report, called Linking
Renewable Energy to Rural Development contains case studies from Iowa, Maine, Vermont, Tennessee and Oregon. In each of these states, local
regions identified renewable energy generation as a local opportunity, and with the help of Rural Development, made strategic investments to
develop the potential of renewable energy in the area by linking it to already existing industries, like manufacturing to wind turbine production in
Iowa, and the forest products industry to woody biomass in Maine.

Economic decline now is likely to cause great power war- rise in nationalism,
populism, and revisionist powers
Sundaram and Popov 19

[Jomo Kwame Sundaram, a former economics professor, was United Nations Assistant Secretary-General
for Economic Development, and received the Wassily Leontief Prize for Advancing the Frontiers of
Economic Thought, Vladimir Popov is a Principal Researcher in the Central Economics and Mathematics
Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences. He is also a professor emeritus at the New Economic
School in Moscow, and an adjunct research professor at the Institute of European and Russian Studies at
Carleton University in Ottawa. In 2009-15 he worked in DESA, UN, as a Senior Economic Affairs
Officer and Inter-regional Adviser. He has published extensively on world economy and development
issues (he is the editor of three books, and author of ten books and hundreds of articles, including in the
Journal of Comparative Economics, World Development, Comparative Economic Studies, Cambridge
Journal of Economics, New Left Review, as well as essays in the media9-25-2019, Interpress Service,
"Economic Crisis Can Trigger World War" http://www.ipsnews.net/2019/02/economic-crisis-can-trigger-
world-war// accessed: 9-25-2019//qmn]

Economic recovery efforts since the 2008-2009 global financial crisis have
KUALA LUMPUR and BERLIN, Feb 12 2019 (IPS) -
mainly depended on unconventional monetary policies. As fears rise of yet another international financial
crisis, there are growing concerns about the increased possibility of large-scale military conflict. More
worryingly, in the current political landscape, prolonged economic crisis, combined with rising economic
inequality, chauvinistic ethno-populism as well as aggressive jingoist rhetoric, including threats, could easily
spin out of control and ‘morph’ into military conflict, and worse, world war. Crisis responses limited The 2008-2009 global
financial crisis almost ‘bankrupted’ governments and caused systemic collapse. Policymakers managed to pull the world economy from the brink,
but soon switched from counter-cyclical fiscal efforts to unconventional monetary measures, primarily ‘quantitative easing’ and very low, if not
negative real interest rates. But while these monetary interventions averted realization of the worst fears at the time by turning the US
economy around, they did little to address underlying economic weaknesses, largely due to the ascendance of finance in
recent decades at the expense of the real economy. Since then, despite promising to do so, policymakers have not seriously pursued, let alone
achieved, such needed reforms. Instead, ostensible structural reformers have taken advantage of the crisis to pursue largely irrelevant efforts to
further ‘casualize’ labour markets. This lack of structural reform has meant that the unprecedented liquidity central
banks injected into economies has not been well allocated to stimulate resurgence of the real economy. From bust to
bubble Instead, easy credit raised asset prices to levels even higher than those prevailing before 2008. US house prices are now 8% more than at
the peak of the property bubble in 2006, while its price-to-earnings ratio in late 2018 was even higher than in 2008 and in 1929, when the Wall
Street Crash precipitated the Great Depression. As monetary tightening checks asset price bubbles, another economic crisis — possibly more
severe than the last, as the economy has become less responsive to such blunt monetary interventions — is considered likely. A decade of such
unconventional monetary policies, with very low interest rates, has greatly depleted their ability to revive the economy. The implications beyond
the economy of such developments and policy responses are already being seen. Prolonged economic distress has worsened public antipathy
towards the culturally alien — not only abroad, but also within. Thus, another round of economic stress is deemed likely to
foment unrest, conflict, even war as it is blamed on the foreign. International trade shrank by two-thirds within half a
decade after the US passed the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act in 1930, at the start of the Great Depression, ostensibly to protect American workers
and farmers from foreign competition! Liberalization’s discontents Rising economic insecurity, inequalities and deprivation
are expected to strengthen ethno-populist and jingoistic nationalist sentiments, and increase social tensions
and turmoil, especially among the growing precariat and others who feel vulnerable or threatened. Thus, ethno-populist inspired
chauvinistic nationalism may exacerbate tensions, leading to conflicts and tensions among countries, as in
the 1930s. Opportunistic leaders have been blaming such misfortunes on outsiders and may seek to reverse
policies associated with the perceived causes, such as ‘globalist’ economic liberalization. Policies which successfully check such problems may
reduce social tensions, as well as the likelihood of social turmoil and conflict, including among countries. However, these may also inadvertently
exacerbate problems. The recent spread of anti-globalization sentiment appears correlated to slow, if not negative per capita income growth and
increased economic inequality. To be sure, globalization and liberalization are statistically associated with growing economic inequality and
rising ethno-populism. Declining real incomes and growing economic insecurity have apparently strengthened ethno-populism and nationalistic
chauvinism, threatening economic liberalization itself, both within and among countries. Insecurity, populism, conflict Thomas Piketty has
argued that a sudden increase in income inequality is often followed by a great crisis. Although causality is difficult
to prove, with wealth and income inequality now at historical highs, this should give cause for concern. Of course, other factors also contribute to
or exacerbate civil and international tensions, with some due to policies intended for other purposes. Nevertheless, even if unintended, such
developments could inadvertently catalyse future crises and conflicts. Publics often have good reason to be restless,
if not angry, but the emotional appeals of ethno-populism and jingoistic nationalism are leading to chauvinistic policy measures which only make
things worse. At the international level, despite the world’s unprecedented and still growing interconnectedness, multilateralism is increasingly
being eschewed as the US increasingly resorts to unilateral, sovereigntist policies without bothering to even build coalitions with its usual allies.
Avoiding Thucydides’ iceberg Thus, protracted economic distress, economic conflicts or another financial crisis could lead to
military confrontation by the protagonists, even if unintended. Less than a decade after the Great Depression started, the
Second World War had begun as the Axis powers challenged the earlier entrenched colonial powers.