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 Labor
shortages in the agriculture industry are nothing new. A brief
Google search on the topic brings up many articles. “Finding good
farm help has gotten tough,” reads the sub title of a 2018 article
from the website Successful Farming. The title of a 2021 article
from USA Today reads, “Finding workers was already hard for the ag
industry. Now it’s even worse, farmers say.” A Farm Bureau Financial
Services article from 2022 calls finding good employees for farms
“more difficult than ever.” Brian Duncan, President of the Illinois
Farm Bureau, published an opinion piece earlier this year stating
the need for a stable workforce in the agriculture industry.
Clearly, this is nothing new for farmers. What are some of the
repercussions of not having a stable workforce on your farm? What
about the effects on the agriculture industry as a whole? What are
some of the things you can do if your farm is also struggling in
this manner? Read on to learn more.
A Newsweek article published
this year states that the agricultural industry has “2.4 million
farm jobs needing to be filled.” They got this number from the
American Farm Bureau Federation. This extremely high need for labor
comes with its consequences. According to the same article, between
2017 and 2022, the United States saw a seven percent cutback in
farms. Zippy Duvall, the American Farm Bureau Federation President,
blamed this partly on the labor shortage. “‘There is no question
that our broken workforce system is partly to blame,’” Duvall said
while commenting on why the U.S. is losing farms so fast.
One of the major fallouts of this labor shortage is the spoiling of
perfectly good produce. A 2019 study out of California found that
over thirty percent of the crops that were ready to harvest were
left in the fields at the end of harvest time. This leads to a large
loss in potential revenue for the farmers as well as the state they
operate within. A report by Kansas State University and the Kansas
Department of Agriculture stated that, if the agricultural labor
shortage were addressed, it could raise Kansas’s economy by $11.7
billion.
Are there any solutions to this problem, and if so, what are they?
Well, in 2023, the USDA created a grant program designed to help
farmers address their concerns with labor shortages. It is called
the Farm Labor Stabilization and Protection Pilot Grant Program. The
Farm Bureau also suggests recruiting labor in places such as high
schools and colleges, 4-H and FFA programs, local bulletin boards,
and even online.
Beside recruiting in the right
places, the Farm Bureau also suggests identifying the skills you
need in your workers and being clear about the expectations you have
for your employees. They also recommend you be willing to teach any
newly hired employees. Just because someone does not have the skill
when you hire them does not mean they cannot learn. “Some of your
best potential employees may not have a background in agriculture
but could learn,” a Farm Bureau article states.
Probably one of the most important aspects of farm labor, however,
is immigration. According to a 2019-2020 survey conducted by the
U.S. Department of Labor’s National Agricultural Workers Survey,
“approximately 68% of farm workers are foreign-born, the
overwhelming majority from Mexico.” A potential issue of this
statistic is the additional statistic of how many of these
foreign-born workers are undocumented. According to Rice
University’s Baker Institute website, “agriculture is recognized as
one of the sectors with the highest proportion of undocumented
workers.” This website went on to state that, of all the farm labor
force, undocumented workers have “comprised around 40% of the labor
force over the last three decades.”
The U.S. government has been
attempting to create legal pathways for these undocumented workers
to legally get into the country for a time and work as seasonal
labor. The H-2A Temporary Agricultural Program, also known as the
H-2A visa program, pairs foreign-born individuals looking to work in
the U.S. with farmers who are looking for laborers.
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This program does have its
drawbacks, such as the fact that the laborers are granted a maximum
stay of ten months. While this works for crop farmers, many
livestock farmers, who need labor year-round, are not completely
covered by the visa program. Another potential issue is the need for
proof. According to the USDA’s website, the farmer “must
demonstrate… that efforts to recruit U.S. workers were not
successful.
The program is very heavily
used, however. This is a sign of just how much farmers are in need
of labor. The same USDA article states, “one of the clearest
indicators of the scarcity of farm labor is the fact that the number
of H-2A positions requested and approved has increased more than
sevenfold in the past 17 years, from just over 48,000… in fiscal
2005 to around 371,000 in fiscal year 2022.”
Clearly, the agriculture industry is in dire need of labor. There
are several things you can do to try to find help, such as
increasing your search area, even as far as foreign labor. Even if
you are not a farmer looking for workers, keep some of what you
learned here in mind and thank a farmer the next time you can for
keeping farm-fresh products on your dinner plate even through these
kinds of struggles.
Sources:
1.
https://www.agriculture.com/
farm-management/estate-planning/
help-wanted-how-farmers-are-
tackling-a-labor-shortage#:~:text=
Finding%20reliable%20labor%20has%
20become,paid%20jobs%20in%20other
%20industries.
2.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/
money/economy/2021/07/03/labor-
shortage-farm-ag-industry-fill-positions-
open-jobs/7852447002/
3.
https://www.fbfs.com/learning-center/
how-to-recruit-new-employees-for-your
-agriculture-business
4.
https://www.ilfb.org/opinion/agriculture-
needs-a-stable-workforce-in-2024/
5.
https://www.croptracker.com/blog/labor-
shortages-in-agriculture-the-trends-and-solutions#:~:text=How%20the%20Farm%
20Labor%20Shortage,to%20attract%20and%
20keep%20talent.
6.
https://www.newsweek.com/us-farming-
crisis-h2a-visa-reform-labor-shortage-
1878530#:~:text=Labor%20shortages%20in%
20agriculture%20have,left%20in%20fields%
20post%2Dharvest.
7.
https://www.fsa.usda.gov/farmworkers
8.
https://www.fbfs.com/learning-center/
how-to-recruit-new-employees-for-your-
agriculture-business
9.
https://www.farmworkerjustice.org/wp-
content/uploads/2022/06/NAWS-data-fact-
sheet-FINAL.docx-3.pdf
10.
https://www.bakerinstitute.org/research
/feeding-america-how-immigrants-sustain
-us-agriculture#:~:text=9%5D-,Undocumented%
20Versus%20Legal%20Farmworkers,highest%
20proportion%20of%20undocumented%
20workers.
11.
https://www.ers.usda.gov/topics/farm-
economy/farm-labor/#h2a
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