By Clint Thompson
The 2025 Georgia State Legislative Session continues to highlight areas of concern for Georgia’s specialty crop industry. One bill centers on labor.
House Bill 82, also known as the Georgia Guest Worker Act, was the focus of a recent hearing for the House Industry and Labor Committee.
Georgia Agribusiness Council (GAC) President Will Bentley discussed the bill which was presented by State Rep. Matt Reeves.
“They’ve been working on the Guest Worker Act through the committee process. We’ve been engaged with representatives in trying to figure out what Rep. Reeves was hoping to get out of that. He’s really trying to highlight the need for highly skilled workers in Georgia, and we certainly think that agriculture workers fall into that category,” Bentley said. “We’re not sure how far down the road that bill will get, because that’s typically been viewed as a federal issue. He really wanted to highlight it in the state of Georgia, see if there were some resources he could put behind it and allow the state to have some resources to spotlight what those biggest needs are. That continues to be discussed.
“It hasn’t really moved further. It could be a positive if it were to move forward, but it’s never a bad thing to have a conversation about what the workforce needs for Georgia agriculture are.”
Reeves believes the bill would establish a structured system to which Georgia businesses, agriculture included, could apply for migrant or foreign workers through a state-run entity which then requests workers from the U.S. Department of Labor.