A dozen growers are heading to DC to educate our elected lawmakers and agency heads about the issues that we face in our community.  This year we have hired a lobbyist to help us and we are hopeful that we can push through a couple of bills that should really help growers. Our top priority is an exemption to the Jones Act for aquaculture workers. If we get this passed growers should be able to save thousands of dollars by switching to workers comp instead of Jones Act insurance. We are also pushing for improved crop insurance alternatives in the Farm Bill and we continue to prod the FDA to resolve the trade embargo on shellfish exports to the EU. We also continue to advocate for saving the Milford Lab, Sea Grant and all the critical research programs we depend on.

Read about last year’s Hill Walk events in our March 2017 newsletter. -RBR