By Clint Thompson
Specialty crop producers would like nothing more than to hire domestic labor and scrap the expensive and cumbersome H-2A program altogether. But growers are not afforded that option. American workers are dodging work in agriculture, leaving fruit and vegetable work to a seasonal workforce that largely only exists overseas.
Certain factions of the nation’s leadership are oblivious to that reality, leaving that educational message in the hands of leaders like Michael Marsh, president and chief executive officer of the National Council of Agricultural Employers. He spoke about the current labor crisis at the Georgia Agricultural Labor Relations Forum in Tifton, Georgia, in November.
“If you’re a farmer and you’re looking for somebody, you get it. But if you’re somebody that’s not engaged in agriculture, you probably don’t,” Marsh said. “There was an effort in Congress to roll back some of these regulations. It’s called the Congressional Review Act which can pass both chambers with a simple majority. On the senate side, we had three republicans that wouldn’t support it; Josh Hawley from Missouri; J.D. Vance from Ohio; and Mr. (Eric) Schmitt from Missouri as well.
“Their notion was that we’re keeping all of these Americans from coming out and taking the jobs, because we’re bringing in these H-2A workers. The average rate in the United States last year was $16.62 an hour and we’re still having to bring in 300,000 workers overseas to take these jobs. We just can’t get enough domestic workers to even apply for the jobs and accept it if it’s offered to them.”
Expensive H-2A
Producers are also not resorting to the H-2A program because of economics. It is actually working against them to do so.
“(A domestic workforce) is cheaper because you don’t have to pay for transportation into and out of the country. You don’t have to supply the housing, and you don’t have to provide them with three meals a day. You don’t have to pay their visa costs. All of those things are rolled into this (Adverse Effect Wage) rate,” Marsh said.