2022 Year in Produce: Labor

(Graphic: Farm Journal)

From fresh produce growers to distributors to retailers, finding labor was a challenge in 2022. Here are a few stories that reflect the importance of farm labor reform for the fresh produce industry in 2022.

Grower advocates have been the leaders in labor reform for decades, but 2022 again brought no conclusive solutions. Pleas for Congressional action on immigration and farm labor reform were fruitless through mid-December.

As the dependence on the H-2A program increased for American growers, advocates continued to push from legislative answers that could provide long-term solutions to rising wage rates and strained profitability for American growers.

Here are a few stories that reflect the importance of farm labor reform for the fresh produce industry in 2022.

Produce industry looks to Congress for solutions to the labor crisis

Jan. 10

By Tom Karst

ANAHEIM, Calif. –  As hard as it is to achieve, the bipartisan effort of Congress is the only way forward to meaningful farm labor reform.

That was the view shared by Dave Puglia, of Western Growers, and Kam Quarles, of the National Potato Council, at a Jan. 6 workshop at the 2022 Potato Expo. 

Puglia, co-chair of the Specialty Crop Farm Bill Alliance and president and CEO of Western Growers, joined with Quarles, CEO at the National Potato Council, in a session looking at the prospects for a congressional solution to the U.S. ag labor crisis.

Quarles said executive actions by any administration won’t provide needed reforms to farm labor and the H-2A program.

“I think the reality of it is that, due to the structure of our ag labor and immigration system, looking to the administration through executive fiat to try to solve these problems is just not realistic,” Quarles said. 

While executive orders and certain actions can change rules “around the edges,” Quarles said, only Congress can deliver meaningful immigration reform.

“The question for all of us is, how can we motivate Congress to deliver that solution?” he said.

Puglia said that providing legal status to existing farmworkers is important for Western Growers. At the same time, the expanded use of the H-2A guest worker program over the past 10 years has made that tool increasingly important, he said. 

“I think that we're in a position now where both are equally important,” he said, and Puglia said the H-2A program will become even more important in coming years to the group’s member growers.

Providing legal status to existing workers is critical, but Puglia said the number of available domestic workers is declining over time.

Even if Republicans gain ground in the mid-term elections, Puglia said any solution to farm immigration reform must be bipartisan in order to succeed.

“That's really hard; it means accepting stuff that you don't really like,” he said. “But the alternative is status quo, and that is spiraling around the drain.”

H-2A program sees double-digit gains in positions filled

May 18

By The Packer Staff

American growers need more workers, and the H-2A program is answering the bell.

U.S. Department of Labor data show that, for the first two quarters of fiscal year 2022, program applications increased 17.5% over the previous fiscal year.

The total number of jobs certified by DOL’s Office of Foreign Labor Certification for the same period jumped 16.5% to 193,273 compared with the previous year, according to a news release said.

“Similar to other sectors of the U.S. economy, agricultural employers face an exceptional shortage of workers as America recovers from the pandemic,” Michael Marsh, president and CEO of NCAE, said in the release. “Farm and ranch families need help filling these good-paying temporary jobs that, on average, pay more than twice the federal minimum wage. Although employers advertise and recruit heavily to attract U.S. workers into these positions, the dwindling number of domestic applicants for these temporary positions has led to explosive growth in the number of temporary foreign workers needed to plant, nurture, and harvest food for our nation.”

Last fiscal year, the release said more than 258,000 temporary foreign workers received H-2A visas to fill the more than 317,000 farm and ranch jobs for which no qualified, willing, and available domestic workers could be recruited. That was an increase of approximately 21% in the number of temporary foreign workers employed in the prior fiscal year in 2020, the release said.

“Despite the significant added costs and regulations ag employers must face if they participate in the program, farm and ranch employers find themselves increasingly having to turn to filling some of the 2.4 million hired U.S. agricultural jobs reported by the USDA with temporary workers coming from outside our borders,” Marsh said in the release. “This is a national security issue because a nation unable to feed and clothe itself is not secure.”

Lawmakers call for bipartisan solutions to farm labor shortage

July 13

By The Packer Staff

National and state agricultural leaders joined Republican members of Congress on July 11 to call on Congress to pass bipartisan workforce solutions to address the farm labor shortage.

Republican lawmakers present included Reps. Dan Newhouse, R-Wash., Jim Baird, R-Ind., Doug LaMalfa, R-Calif., and Mike Simpson, R-Idaho, according to a news release.

Speakers rallied support for Sens. Mike Crapo, R-Idaho, and Michael Bennet, D-Colo., as they continue their bipartisan efforts to introduce Senate legislation that builds on the House-passed Farm Workforce Modernization Act which passed both in 2019 and 2021, with strong bipartisan support, the release said.

“Consumers are seeing high costs of milk, produce, fruits, meat, and eggs in the supermarket because the Senate has not acted,” American Business Immigration Coalition Action Executive Director and event emcee Rebecca Shi, said in the release. “We need the Senate to act now to provide food security and lower costs for the American people.”

International Fresh Produce Association CEO Cathy Burns added her voice to push for farm labor reform.

“Without immigration reform, we know that American consumers will continue to experience higher prices and fewer options at the grocery store, threatening food security and availability,” Burns said in a statement. “Any threat to the availability of fresh produce undermines the health benefits of fruits and vegetables in combating the chronic diseases that cost our economy billions.”

National Council of Agricultural Employers President and CEO Michael Marsh said in a statement that farm labor reform is a national security issue. “A bipartisan coalition of leaders in the House of Representatives successfully negotiated and passed ag labor reform,” Marsh said. “We now need the Senate to act. We applaud U.S. Sens. Michael Bennet of Colorado and Mike Crapo of Idaho for their bipartisan leadership in that Chamber and look forward to helping them advance their version of this critical legislation in the U.S. Senate.”

Western Growers calls on the U.S. Senate to pass the Farm Workforce Modernization Act

Aug. 23

By The Packer Staff

Western Growers released a new video that calls on the U.S. Senate to pass the Farm Workforce Modernization Act to ease the industry's labor shortage and reduce food inflation.

The current broken immigration system fails to provide the workers the agriculture industry needs to support our country's food production, according to a news release. According to a recent study by Texas A&M University, solving the labor shortage will reduce food prices.

The bipartisan bill, passed twice by the U.S. House of Representatives, provides a path to legal status for experienced, domestic farmworkers and streamlines the H-2A temporary worker visa program. 

quote

By doing their part and passing the Farm Workforce Modernization Act, the U.S. Senate would help protect the future of farms and their food supply, according to the release.

What was one of Western Growers’ biggest triumphs in 2022?
“As was the case last year, Western Growers has been busy in the water space. During the summer, Western Growers was part of a handful of groups that called upon Congress to provide additional resources to Western states facing catastrophic drought — especially resources for the Colorado River basin. In August, Congress passed the Inflation Reduction Act and that bill included billions of dollars of additional resources for drought, most of which are targeted at helping the Colorado River basin.” — Western Growers federal government affairs team in Washington, D.C.


Pandemic can’t slow the growth of the H-2A program, USDA report says

Sept. 6

By Tom Karst

Even the COVID-19 pandemic did not stop the growth of the Department of Labor’s H-2A guest agricultural worker program.

The H-2A program continued to expand in fiscal year 2020, despite the jump in U.S. unemployment due to lockdowns associated with the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a new report from the USDA’s Economic Research Service.

Authored by Marcelo Castillo, Philip Martin and Zachariah Rutledge, the report found: 

  • The number of jobs certified to be filled with H-2A workers increased from around 75,000 in fiscal year 2010 to around 275,000 in fiscal year 2020. Six states accounted for 55% of H-2A jobs certified: Florida (14%), Georgia (10%), Washington (10%), California (9%), North Carolina (8%) and Louisiana (4%).
  • Nationally, the average H-2A contract offered 24 weeks and 39.3 hours per week at an average hourly wage of $13. The average contract was worth $12,500, with a total H-2A wage bill of $3.5 billion in fiscal year 2020. Nationally, the average value of H-2A contracts ranged from $8,000 to $24,000.
  • The top 1% of H-2A applicants (about 90 employers) received 40% of all H-2A certifications in the fiscal year 2020. Most applicants request relatively few workers; about two-thirds request between one and nine H-2A certifications and account for less than 8% of the national total. The top 10 employers of H-2A workers included two growers associations, two farms and six farm labor contractors.
  • Farm labor contractors accounted for 44% of H-2A jobs certified in fiscal year 2020, with most jobs certified to farm labor contractors in Florida and California, although some of those contractors based in one state may employ H-2A workers in other states.

U.S. Apple says future of industry may depend on Farm Workforce Modernization Act

Sept. 16

By Jennifer Strailey

Labor reform has long been a priority for the U.S. Apple Association, says the organization, whose President and CEO Jim Bair spoke at a Sept. 15 press conference on Capitol Hill urging Senate action on the Farm Workforce Modernization Act. He joined Rep. Dan Newhouse and Rep. Mike Simpson, as well as other agriculture industry leaders as part of the American Business Immigration Coalition.

“Agriculture labor reform has been our top legislative priority for more than a decade. It’s the issue that keeps apple growers awake at night, whether they employ 500 workers or five,” said Bair in a statement. “An entire year of care and input costs can be lost when it’s time to harvest and workers arrive late or not at all.”

Like others in the ag industry, apple growers have increasingly turned to the H-2A guest worker program. While Bair estimates that apples may be the largest single commodity user of the program, he also says that workers are often delayed entrance to the program, due to “administrative red tape and the costs associated with the program,” which have outpaced inflation for decades. 

“The reforms in the House-passed Farm Workforce Modernization Act would bring the needed stability and predictability to the agriculture labor market as a whole and specifically to the H-2A program,” Bair said.

He argues that if the H-2A wage rate was locked in for a time, growers could plan ahead knowing what their labor costs are for the year.

“The past few years have created a perfect storm as growers’ input costs such as fuel, fertilizer and freight have risen as much as 300%, while lost export markets have left apples to overhang the market and make the strain even greater,” Bair said. “Apple growers are making tough decisions to determine if they can hang to continue producing America’s favorite fruit for another year, or if what has been a livelihood for three, four or more generations stops with them.”

USDA seeks input on a new grant program to strengthen the food supply chain

Sept. 23

The Packer Staff

The USDA is gathering input to help shape a recently announced planned grant program focused on improving the resiliency of our food and agricultural supply chain by addressing labor shortages in agriculture, reducing irregular migration through increased use of legal pathways, and improving labor protections for farmworkers. 

USDA’s Farm Service Agency will hold three virtual listening sessions on Sept. 28-29 for the new farm labor stabilization and protection pilot grant program, which the Biden-Harris administration announced earlier this year as part of the Los Angeles Declaration on Migration and Protection, according to a news release.

The grant program will use up to $65 million in American Rescue Plan Act funding to provide support for agricultural employers in implementing robust labor standards to promote a safe, healthy work environment for both U.S. workers and workers hired from northern Central American countries under the seasonal H-2A visa program.  

Farmworker wages up 7% from last year, according to USDA Farm Labor Survey

Nov. 29

Kristin Leigh Lore

Hired farmworkers play a critical role in U.S. agriculture while making up less than 1% of all U.S. workers, according to a recent USDA report.

The USDA’s National Agricultural Statistics Service tracks the farmworker labor force and, on Nov. 23, it released its biannual Farm Labor Survey results report sharing wage data from the past year.

Not only does this survey report on hired farm labor trends, demographics and regional variances, but the Farm Labor Survey tracks changes in income that will be used to inform H-2A worker wages in the U.S.

The top finding from the report is that, in the past five years, farm wages grew at 2.9% per year. This increase is consistent with growers' reports that workers were harder than usual to find, according to the USDA report.

Other takeaways of the Farm Labor Survey include:

  • Hired worker wages were up by 2% and gross wage rate increased 7% from 2021.
  • Farm operators paid workers an average gross wage of $17.72 an hour, up 7% from the same week in 2021.

 

Concerns about implications for H-2A

H-2A wage changes are updated through the Department of Labor’s Adverse Effect Wage Rates (AEWR) for 2023, which sources its data from the Farm Labor Survey. While recommending wage increases for H-2A farm workers is good news for some, not everyone agrees with the increase.

The International Fresh Produce Association favors stopping wage increases to H-2A workers through legislative reform, according to a recent news release. Further, the organization champions the House-passed Farm Workforce Modernization Act, which proposes putting an annual cap on increases to the AEWR.

“Today’s release of the Farm Labor Survey by the USDA should be a clarion call from the fresh produce industry on why Congress must act this year on agriculture immigration reform legislation,” Robert Guenther, IFPA’s chief public policy officer, said in the release.

“For the last two years, ramping up to the 2022 congressional mid-terms, we have heard so much rhetoric from our elected officials about the rising cost of food and inflation taking off. Next week, Congress has the ability to stop this unaffordable and unacceptable increase in wages that will cripple producers who are already suffering from high inflation.”  

The AEWR is determined by a formula by the Department of Labor, intended to protect the domestic workforces from having wages depressed by foreign agricultural workers. IFPA believes that this data does not reflect true wage cost for those who use the H-2A program.

NCAE files legal challenge to H-2A Program Rule

Nov. 29

By Tom Karst

The National Council of Agricultural Employers has filed a legal challenge to a new H-2A Program Rule that is set to take effect on Nov. 30.
The Department of Labor said in October the new regulation:

  • Improves safety and health protections for workers housed in rental or public accommodations. 
  • Streamlines and updates bond requirements for labor contractors to better hold them accountable and clarifies joint-employer status for employers and associations. 
  • Clarifies the housing certification process to allow state and local authorities to conduct housing inspections. 
  • Establishes explicit authority to debar attorneys and agents for their misconduct, independent of an employer’s violations. 
  • Makes electronic filing mandatory for most applications to improve employers’ processing efficiency.
  • Modernizes the methodology and procedures for determining the prevailing wage to allow state workforce agencies to produce more prevailing wage findings.

 

The lawsuit filed by the NCAE in late November alleges that the Department of Labor has, “unlawfully repealed a final rule duly issued, prescribed, or promulgated to achieve DOL’s statutory mandate set forth in the Immigration and Nationality Act,” according to a news release.

The action, the release said, was filed in the District of Columbia District Court. The lawsuit cites six causes of action and seeks a preliminary injunction, a permanent injunction, a stay of its implementation, as well as costs, among other relief. 

“The nature of the changes will have a dramatic and negative effect on U.S. farm and ranch families whether they use the H-2A program or not,” Michael Marsh, NCAE president and CEO, said in the release. “The Trump Administration issued a rule that was a final agency action. However, on Inauguration Day, which is a federal holiday, the new Biden Administration unlawfully withdrew the Trump Rule from publication at the Federal Register without any of the required public notice and comment. The new Administration then substantially changed the rule Trump’s DOL had created to the detriment of farm and ranch families and again, failed to provide opportunity for required notice and comment. The actions here were clearly arbitrary and capricious and an abuse of discretion by the Secretary and otherwise not in accordance with law.”

The release said recent analysis performed on the impact of this new regulation by the Cato Institute, indicates that the rule will place more burdens on growers and ranchers and “will add to the already sky-rocketing food prices in the United States.”

“This regulation is a lose-lose-lose scenario,” Marsh said in the release. “The farm and ranch families we represent lose, the essential farmworkers our members work with every day lose, and it hits consumers in the pocketbook. We must seek relief from this arbitrary and capricious regulation. The Secretary must follow the law and it is in the public interest that the U.S. government does just that.”
 

 

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