President Obama made good on his promise to make changes in the nation’s “broken” immigration system, but there’s no mention of agriculture or farm workers in his plan.

“In practical terms, we do not expect the president’s initiative to help America’s farmers deal with the real labor challenges they face,” said American Farm Bureau Federation president Bob Stallman in a statement after the president’s address from the White House. “Our nation loses millions of dollars in fruit and vegetable production every year because farmers cannot find labor to harvest everything they grow. This order will not change that.”

A statement from the Agriculture Workforce Coalition stressed that “the only way to permanently fix agriculture’s labor shortage is through legislation” and without it “farmers will continue to be unable to find the workers they need to pick crops or care for livestock; more food production will go overseas; local economies across the country will suffer; and the American consumer will pay more for the food they eat.” The AWC includes Farm Bureau and some 70 other agricultural organizations.

However, United Farm Workers President Arturo Rodriguez commended the president’s action and said it “will allow at least 250,000 of America’s current professional farm workers who feed our nation to apply for temporary legal status and work permits.” UFW says half of that total would come from California alone.