How to Solve the US Farmworker Shortage, According to Congress

When Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins said the solution to the worsening farmworker shortage is tapping some of the 34 million “able-bodied adults on Medicaid,” Republican Representative Derrick Van Orden knew that wasn’t going to work for his constituents in Wisconsin. President Donald Trump’s mass deportations this year have decimated the nation’s migrant labor force, and expecting US-born workers to fill the gap simply isn’t realistic, Van Orden told reporters at the World Dairy Expo in Madison earlier this month. “I’m saying out loud what no Republican wants to say,” he told them. “If we don’t retain our current agriculture ...