By Clint Thompson
Count the Alabama Fruit and Vegetable Growers Association (AFVGA) as one organization excited about the opportunity to work alongside President-Elect Donald Trump and his administration in a couple of months.
Blake Thaxton, executive director of the Alabama Fruit and Vegetable Growers Association (AFVGA), discussed the next administration and its importance in helping resolve long-standing issues like labor.
“We think we’ll be able to work on some of our priorities a little bit better with this administration. The Alabama Fruit and Vegetable Growers Association is affiliated with the Alabama Farmers Federation which endorsed Donald Trump. We’re excited that he was able to pull out a significant victory,” Thaxton said. “We think we’ll be able to work with their administration to tackle some of these big issues that affect our fruit and vegetable growers in the state; especially the issues surrounding labor and trying to fix some of the problems that we see with the H-2A program.
“We’re excited to get to work with the administration as they come in and see if we can make headway that is good for the Alabama farmer.”
Alabama’s Support for Trump
Trump garnered approximately 1.4 million votes (64.8%) in Alabama, almost doubling Vice President Kamala Harris’ total. The AFVGA knows what to expect having worked with the President-Elect during his first term.
“I think we know that his administration before was very open to the needs of the agricultural community. That’s a big part of what we needed, an administration that will listen and take in feedback from the community to better the situation. We also feel like we were able to work very closely with the administration before, which has not always been the case. We know we’re not going to get every priority that we have but just having a partner who’s able to work with us and care about the industry is a big deal,” Thaxton said.