With a new Congress starting on January 3, 2025, and President-elect Donald Trump set to be sworn in on January 20, the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association (NCBA) is focused on several key issues for the coming year. NCBA President Mark Eisele recently highlighted areas where his organization hopes to see progress.
Courtesy of NCBA
“There’s no shortage of problems we’d like to find solutions for in 2025,” Eisele said. “We’re going to be working on transportation, we’re going to be working on animal disease and traceability, and we’re going to be working on the checkoff and those markets. Transportation and hours of service and safety. A lot of the overreach and regulation.”
One major concern is the lack of workers in agriculture, especially in fields like production, processing, and transportation. Eisele believes the current H-2A guestworker program could be improved to help fill these needs.
“We can’t get our H-2A guestworker program to work properly,” he explained. “The vetting is so extreme, the parameters are so extreme. And yet, those folks are really good workers, and most farms and ranches treat them like family.” Eisele said many of these workers have stayed long-term and become valuable team members.
He also points to a broader worker shortage across many parts of agriculture. “Production, processing, transportation—all of them need more workers,” said Eisele. To solve this, he hopes to see more emphasis on education and vocational training. “I think we’re going to see a shift in education, maybe a ramping up—I’m hoping—a ramping up of ‘vo-ag’ and ‘vo-tech’ to fill those vacancies.”
As the 2025 session of Congress begins and the new administration settles in, Eisele and others in the cattle industry are watching closely to see how these issues will be addressed.