It’s no secret the fresh produce industry relies on its workforce to maintain the constant supply of fruits and vegetables consumers crave. But the agriculture industry has been facing a labor crisis for a while, even for growers who use the H-2A guestworker visa program to secure the help they desperately need.
Jon DeVaney, president of the Washington State Tree Fruit Association, serving growers, packers and marketers of tree fruit in Washington, said he’s seen an increase in the use of H-2A in his state, which demonstrates the clear need for ag workers in the industry.
“You first have to recruit domestically at the higher wage rates required by the program and only if you can’t fill those better offer jobs with the higher wages domestically, only then are you approved for those foreign visa holders,” he said. “So that is a good proxy for the actual labor shortage domestically and it shows that even at increasing wages, you’re not pulling more people into the agricultural seasonal workforce.”
Those who participate in the H-2A program have a higher minimum wage to pay workers, pay for workers’ housing and transportation, including flights to and from the farm and visa and administrative costs to bring the workers to the U.S. DeVaney said all of those added costs make it harder and harder for growers to break even.
“Some of our data in the Northwest done by the Northwest Horticultural Council recently, showed that wages have been growing significantly faster in agriculture than in the overall economy based on the Department of Labor’s employment cost index,” he said. “So what we saw in 2023, for example, was that 99% of the gross returns for apple growers were going just to cover their labor costs. Everything else involved in growing your crop that year was just a loss because labor had basically eaten all of your returns, and that’s causing a lot of problems for growers.”
DeVaney said these problems for growers include having to remove orchards, decreased production and growers often choosing not to pick varieties a second or third time because it’s too cost-prohibitive to do so.
“In states like Washington that have implemented time-and-a-half overtime over 40 hours a week for agriculture, you’re not just looking at the $19.82 per hour adverse effect wage rate now for H-2A workers, but that plus 50%,” DeVaney said. “You’re looking at about a $30.00 an hour cost plus housing and so on. The labor costs of doing that additional harvest activity mean that frequently more growers are having to decide ‘I can’t pick that because it’s going to result in a significant loss.’ There’s no way you’re going to be able to sell that particular product at a decent return to cover that cost.”
And all of this means consumers might have fewer options in their grocery store, DeVaney said. He also said this will likely lead to more food waste as growers who used to donate unsold fruit to food banks now can’t afford to pick that fruit to donate.
“We’re seeing some reduction in supply, and it’s not just grower profit margins or, you know, ability to break even, but we’re seeing reduced supply into the food system that will have consequences for some consumers, so they might not be able to get everything that they want every time they want it with domestically produced produce,” he said.
