It’s no secret labor remains one of the most challenging issues in farming. To help advocate the need for labor reforms, a coalition of U.S. growers and ranchers, including specialty crops, livestock and dairy, have come together to create Grow it Here. Grow it Here officially debuted with a webinar that brought together growers, industry representatives and more to discuss the challenges facing agriculture today.
Kristi Boswell, adviser to Grow it Here and a former senior USDA official, says the organization will be a platform for growers to highlight the labor shortage crisis and to share the experiences of growers living through it.
“We hope that by raising farmer voices, we can complement the ongoing advocacy of the agriculture community to educate the public and the policymakers about the challenges farmers are facing and the need for ag labor reform today,” she says. “Farmers growing a variety of commodities, from fruits and vegetables to livestock and dairy from all across the country, will share with you their experiences and the challenges they face as they try to provide the safe, affordable and high-quality food to American families and around the world.”
Zach Rutledge, an assistant professor in the department of agricultural, food and resource economics at Michigan State University, says he’s studied farm labor markets for about six or seven years. In the latest National Agricultural Workers survey, about seven out of 10 farmworkers are born in another country, primarily Mexico, and a good share of farmworkers are not authorized to work in the U.S. legally.
Rutledge says he has surveyed growers to understand how labor shortages impact their operations.
“My surveys indicate that farmers are increasingly likely to experience a labor shortage, and that has been increasing over time. The most recent rounds of surveys I’ve done indicate that about half of the farmers are experiencing some degree of labor shortage,” he says. “The average shortage is about 20% of the labor force, so we have about half of the farmers reporting that they can’t hire all the labor they need, and then … the average shortage is about 20%.”
Rutledge says a peer-reviewed survey of fruit and vegetable growers shows a 10% reduction in labor supply causes as much as a 4.2% reduction in production and up to about a 5.5% reduction in farmgate value. And, when looking at California alone, farm labor supply has declined 1% per year.
“If we focus on California, that means even in just the top five counties that could cause a loss of $3.7 billion in lost revenue over the course of 10 years,” he says.
Grower’s Labor Crisis Stories
A major part of the webinar was to hear from growers across the country and in many different commodities. These growers shared how ag labor availability has impacted business decisions and more.
Lisa Tate, a fifth-generation citrus and avocado grower in southern California, says it’s important to remember this labor issue isn’t just about growers; it’s about everyday families who want affordable, healthy food grown in the U.S.
Tate says work runs year-round on her family farm, and that means large crews rotate between her family’s farm and neighboring farms. She says at one point, her family had partnered with three other farms to bring H-2A workers in, and she says the program’s housing requirements pose a specific challenge as the average home in her area is around $870,000, navigating the Mexican and U.S. visa application process proved difficult, providing transportation to and from the workers’ home country added to the burden, and then the farms needed to train the workers.
“Just as they were finally trained and comfortable, it was time to transport them back home again,” she says. “So, after trying the program, we realized we simply didn’t have the administrative resources or the logistical capacity to make that sustainable for our business.”
Tate refutes the notion that automation will solve this labor crisis in the immediate future.
“There are currently no machines that can do the work that these people do,” she says. “They just do not exist. So, every piece of fruit we harvest represents skilled human labor. In my county, it’s estimated that there are around 30,000 farm workers. About 3,000 workers are brought in each year under the H-2A guestworker program, which means that over 90% of the people who harvest, prune and care for our crops are already part of our local community, and about 10% of our agricultural workforce comes through H-2A. But even with both of those groups combined, we still face continuous labor shortages.”
Tate says a major challenge for growers is that rising labor costs aren’t something passed on to the consumer. Noting the rising cost of land, regulatory requirements and everything else needed for the H-2A program means often the grower doesn’t make any money on the crops grown.
“We’re price takers, so we pay all of our bills, and at the end, after all the bills are paid, then the farmer gets the money, and then if there’s anything left, and sometimes there’s not anything left, and we end up paying to harvest our crops or to provide food, and so so we don’t get an opportunity to pass that on,” she says. “So instead of us just not making money, that crop ends up going bad or being wasted or just not being harvested, and it’s just wasteful, and then we can’t compete with foreign agricultural commodities, and so it’s bad for the whole system in general.”
Tracy Vinz, owner of Olden Organic Farms in Ripon, Wis., says she’s used the H-2A program for five years now and says she would not be able to farm without her employees who come from Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras.
“We unfortunately are in the middle of nowhere, but yet in the middle of everywhere. We are pretty centrally located in Wisconsin,” she says. “We are in small-town America, and people in our community around us just do not want to farm. We get an applicant here or there, and they come out in loafers and khaki pants and think: ‘Oh my gosh. You mean I’m going to get dirty?’ They don’t even make it through an interview without them saying, this just isn’t for me.”
Vinz says she and her husband often wonder what would happen to the fourth-generation farm without foreign labor.
“There’s no way we can do this,” he says. “Last year, some of our guys had to go back early, and we had to leave crops in the field. They weren’t harvested because we couldn’t do it alone.”
Fourth-generation blueberry grower, Brandon Raso of Variety Farms in Hammonton, N.J., says, like other commodities, the rising costs of the H-2A program have been a challenge for the blueberry growers in his area.
“We’re in a county that’s known as the blueberry capital of the world, and we are very dense with other blueberry growers, all neighbors, all very friendly, and watching farms, smaller farms, go out of business because they can’t get the labor to stay open,” he says. “We’re also watching the next generation, children of these farmers, not want to take that business over and therefore having to sell or watch the land go from farming to housing developments is very heartbreaking.”
He says this is in part to rising costs of labor, but Raso says rising blueberry imports directly threaten U.S. blueberry growers.
“We’re seeing is a rapid decrease in production nationwide with blueberries, and some of the holes in the market are being plugged with foreign imports,” he says. “These foreign importers of fruit, specifically in South America, don’t have a labor shortage, and they’re able to fill these gaps in the market. And it’s making it increasingly challenging for domestic farmers here in the U.S. to stay competitive.”
He says he wants his young daughter to join the family farm, but he’s not sure that’s possible given the current climate.
“I have to admit, it’s something I really don’t see possible unless we get this figured out,” he says. “American farmers are hurting everywhere, and the biggest challenge we all have is labor.”
Linda Pryor, a third-generation apple grower from Hilltop Farm in Hendersonville, N.C., agrees with Vinz, saying people in her community do not want to work on a farm, and the need for skilled workers to help with the orchard tasks means her family needs foreign-born workers, who bring generations of farming experience and knowledge to her family’s operation.
She says her family has put off farming decisions that could help her farm remain viable because of labor issues.
“We really are at the point that we need to plant trees that would produce more profitable varieties of apples, but we haven’t done that because the varieties that we would like to plant would require even more labor,” she says.
Pryor says with fresh produce there’s a very short window for harvest before quality begins to deteriorate.
“Farms are the beginning of the food supply chain and must have employees,” she says. “But it doesn’t stop there, either, because employees are needed every step of the way, from harvest to packing to shipping the produce to get it to the people that need it.”
Pryor says with H-2A being a voluntary guestworker program, the workers who come back every year choose to do so.
“I have an excellent return rate on my farm,” she says. “I know that many others do too, and the same people want to come back year after year and work with us. And it’s more than just employee-employer relationship with farming; you’re spending extremely long days, usually having all three meals of the day together. So, it’s much more of a family feel than an employee and employer feel. The success of my farm depends on them. I also appreciate the fact that they want to come and work.”
Grow it Here’s Goals
Tate says she hopes policymakers see this need for a long-term solution.
“If we want a secure, affordable and sustainable food supply in this country, then we need an immigration system that is both economically and functionally feasible for family farms,” she says.
Boswell says she hopes that Grow it Here can help elevate the voices of growers, educate policymakers and the public about the ag labor crisis, but is less of an advocacy organization and more of a platform for education.
“There are efforts all across the country highlighting the need for ag labor reform and the struggles that farmers are facing with their access to a legal and stable workforce,” she adds. “To me the fact that all of these continue to grow and exist is just how dire the situation is on the ground. And I think everyone is rallying together to share these stories, these testimonies, to encourage Congress to move forward long-term ag labor reform and also work with the administration on regulatory relief that can provide the short-term stability that we need.”
Raso says he hopes some revisions could help provide stability to the H-2A program and keep family farms in business.
“We are stewards of the land,” he says. “We try to provide quality produce, fruits and vegetables to the public. We’re asking to be recognized that this crisis is real, and it’s unfortunately too late for some farms, but the writing is on the wall for those of us who are still in business.”
