NALC Webinar: Exploring the Essentials of Farm Labor Law for Employers and Employees

Jul 31, 2023

The National Agricultural Law Center (NALC) is set to host a highly anticipated webinar on August 9th, focusing on the crucial aspects of farm labor law for both employers and employees. The event aims to provide comprehensive insights into the legal landscape governing agricultural labor, equipping participants with the knowledge to navigate this intricate domain successfully.

The webinar will serve as a vital resource for all stakeholders involved in the agricultural sector, offering clarity on the rights, responsibilities, and regulations that shape their working relationships.

The NALC, a leading authority on agricultural law, is renowned for its commitment to providing educational resources and support to the farming community. The upcoming webinar represents another step in their mission to empower farmers, farmworkers, and agricultural employers with relevant legal information.

During the 90-minute virtual session, experts in agricultural law will address various topics, such as employment contracts, wage and hour laws, workplace safety, discrimination and harassment protections, immigration considerations, and child labor laws.

During the webinar, the speakers will use real-life examples to show how these laws work in actual farming situations. This will help participants better understand how the laws affect their daily farm activities.

For employers, the webinar will emphasize the importance of compliance with federal and state labor laws to avoid potential legal pitfalls. Employers will learn about their obligations regarding employee compensation, working conditions, and the establishment of fair and equitable labor practices. The session will also shed light on record-keeping requirements and steps to take in case of labor disputes.

Employees, on the other hand, will gain valuable insights into their rights and protections under existing labor laws. They will learn about minimum wage regulations, overtime entitlements, and workplace safety standards designed to safeguard their well-being. In the webinar, they will give advice on what to do if you see any labor problems and how to report them to the right people for help.

The Aug. 9 NALC webinar is a great opportunity for both farmers and workers. It teaches important farm labor laws and helps everyone understand how these rules make workplaces fair, safe, and friendly in agriculture.

Participants can register for the webinar through the NALC's official website, and the event will be accessible to all interested parties across the United States.

The NALC helps people understand and follow farm labor laws better. This support is essential for making sure the agriculture industry stays strong and successful for a long time.

Source : wisconsinagconnection

Video: The 15-Year Bet Behind Every New Variety!

Canada is trying to decide how much agricultural research capacity it can afford to lose. Brian Rossnagel believes the better question is whether the country can afford to rebuild it.

The longtime barley and oat breeder makes the case with a simple fact about his profession: the consequences of today’s decisions may not become visible for 10 or 15 years.

“Pick the right parents. That’s the biggest thing,” Rossnagel says. “If you pick the wrong parents, you’re not going to get anywhere—and you don’t know that until 10 years, 15 years later.”

That warning carries particular weight as Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada moves to reduce spending and streamline parts of its science operations. The department’s 2026–27 plan anticipates the loss of approximately 665 positions by 2028–29 and says some research will be reduced where capacity exists in academia or industry. AAFC says the changes will make its science operations more cost-effective over the long term.

For Canada’s seed industry, Rossnagel’s career illustrates what is at stake.

This fall, the retired University of Saskatchewan breeder will be inducted into the Canadian Agricultural Hall of Fame. During his 35-year career at the Crop Development Centre, he helped develop more than 100 barley and oat varieties, including CDC Austenson—one of Western Canada’s most widely grown feed barleys. His induction recognizes not only those varieties, but the collaboration and research system that made them possible.

Rossnagel is quick to emphasize that none of it was the work of one person.

“The first thing I thought about was all the other people who contributed to whatever success I and my program had over the years,” he says. “We know that it’s not an individual who does this. It’s a group—a team.”

That team extends well beyond the breeder whose name appears beside a variety. It includes technicians, pathologists, quality specialists, statisticians, regional testing sites, seed growers and industry partners. It also includes the breeders who came before and those who will carry the germplasm forward.

CDC Fraser barley, for example, moved through three breeding careers. Its parents came from Brian Harvey’s program. Rossnagel advanced the material after Harvey retired, and Aaron Beattie later guided it through registration and release.

That kind of handoff is normal in plant breeding. The person who makes the original cross may never see the resulting variety reach farmers.

It also explains why lost research capacity cannot simply be switched back on when budgets improve.

“If you shut it off, it’s very, very difficult—and particularly costly—to start it up again,” Rossnagel says. “If you have to start from scratch, it’s going to be at least 10 years before anybody notices whether you’re getting anything done or not.”

The concern is not simply how many experimental lines Canada can process. Modern equipment, statistical tools and genetic technologies allow today’s breeding programs to evaluate tens of thousands of lines—far more than Rossnagel could handle when he entered the field in the early 1970s.

But efficiency and automation do not generate every idea.

“If you pare back down, and instead of having six or seven individual scientists concentrating on wheat breeding, you go down and say three people could handle all this, well, that’s half the ideas gone,” he says. “Particularly if you happen to lose the three people who had the really neat and innovative ideas, boy, that’s a problem.”

It is a timely distinction for Canadian agriculture. Consolidating programs may preserve the volume of material moving through a system, at least initially. It may not preserve the diversity of thinking, regional knowledge or willingness to pursue unconventional crosses.

That regional knowledge matters because Canadian agriculture is not one uniform production environment. A variety suited to southern Alberta may face different disease, moisture and maturity pressures than one grown in Manitoba, Ontario or Atlantic Canada.

“Agriculture is applied biology,” Rossnagel says. “Biology, all around the Earth, moves from the poles to the equator. It does not move from Newfoundland to B.C. like politics do.”