Lack of labor is the biggest challenge for US farmers.

The main challenge of agriculture in USA It’s the lack of labor, Sutton Rucks, which owns and operates a dairy cow farm in downtown Florida and would like more flexibility in granting visas for foreign workers in that sector.

“In the last two years the (US) government has been falling behind when it comes to opening a way to legally bring labor into this country.”, said Rucks at his Milking R Dairy farm in Okeechobee (central Florida), one of the most important dairy production areas in this southern state.

Rucks’ great-grandparents emigrated to Florida in the 1920s and there are already five generations of farmers in his family, including the daughter of this businessman who is passionate about his work and determined to make his farm increasingly sustainable and “Take better care of your cows.”

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The farm has 1,500 Holstein cows that produce 12,000 gallons (45,422 liters) of milk a day and about 30 employees, most of them from Latin America.

COWS IN PARADISE

Rucks jokes with journalists invited on a tour of the farm, which sits amid green fields lined with palm trees and is a haven for a variety of birds including cranes and herons, when he says his cows love Latin music because it’s the one that is heard in the milking center, to which the cows with milk are brought twice a day.

Next to that center, another rotary is already under construction and with advanced technology with the capacity to milk 54 cows at a time, which, according to EFE, will shorten the times and perhaps also the number of workers necessary for this task.

Rucks, who took over the farm in 1986 and every five years undertakes a new innovation project, tells EFE that, after the new milking center comes into operation, the next step will be to undertake milk processing in the same farm and not in an outside plant as is currently the case.

Among his projects in mind is also taking advantage of the methane gas produced by the digestive process of the cows to generate energy, something that some other farms in the area have already started.

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“In our area there is a farm that has already installed this system and its 4,000 cows produce enough energy to supply between 10,000 and 15,000 homes”He says.

At Milking R Dairy Farm, cows that have calved and are producing milk spend most of the day lying on a bed of sand in huge covered but unwalled barns.

They get up only to eat a meal made with local grass and other natural ingredients, while huge fans turn on automatically when the temperature rises above 77 degrees Fahrenheit (25 degrees).

The stables, like the rest of the farm, which can be visited three days a week, stand out for their cleanliness.

With recycled water, excrement is cleaned several times a day and the sand is renewed.

Rucks is proud that all the water used is its own – from rain, ponds and wells – and that there is “zero downloads” of water to the nearby lake.

“Clean cows are healthy cows”, he says proudly.

The farm produces milk and also creamy ice cream that attracts locals and visitors, but they are soon considering making other products.

EDUCATE ABOUT THE IMPORTANCE OF FEEDING THE WORLD

“No matter how much a dairy farm becomes automated, it still needs employees willing to do this hard, long-hour work. Not all people are made to work with animals.” points.

Rucks asks for more”flexibility” with visas to ensure that US farmers are not short of labor.

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“Most of our workforce comes from Latin America, but they could come from anywhere in the world with the right program,” underlines.

In addition, he believes that another important challenge for farmers in the US and in other countries is “educate the public” about the important task they do of feeding the world and clarify that their work is not an attack on the environment.

“There are very few people who are actually feeding the world right now. We have to run a business and try to make money to produce food, to feed the world.” at a time when there are fewer and fewer farmers and less land dedicated to agriculture but the population continues to grow, he says.

Source: EFE