Ad Hints at Farm-labor Shortages in US

RIO GRANDE – Early in March, the Herald received a classified advertisement from a farm in Elba, N.Y. Triple G Farm, almost 500 miles away and about seven hours via car, was running an ad in Cape May County in order to attract farm laborers to help in the harvesting and packaging of its potato and onion crops.
Thinking it odd that a family farm near Buffalo would seek workers in Cape May County, it was also noted that the phone number in the ad was not that of the farm but rather that of an office of the U.S. Department of Labor.
The farm promised a wage comparable to the prevailing New York State minimum wage at $13.25 per hour, free housing for out-of-state workers, along with reimbursement of transportation and subsistence expenses upon completion of 50 percent of the work contract.
According to Jenny Carleo, Agricultural and Natural Resource Management agent at the Rutgers N.J. Agricultural Experiment Station in Court House, that is a very good set of terms for farm labor.
Why, therefore, does Triple G Farms need to place that ad 500 miles away and why is the state Department of Labor accepting the phone calls from prospective employees who might reply to the ad?
The answer may have a lot to do with why people are paying more for fruits and vegetables at the market.
Triple G Farm
Triple G Farm is a family-run operation owned by three brothers who come from a family that has farmed the area near Elba since 1925. The farm is on 565 acres of rich farmland in New York State known as muckland, essentially drained swampland that provides excellent soil for crops like onions, potatoes, lettuce, and carrots.  
A call to the farm immediately cleared up the mystery of why the ad was sent to Cape May County. The Department of Labor told the farm where to advertise.
There was little expectation that the ad would result in workers eager to harvest potatoes in central New York. Rather the ad was part of a process to prove that labor could not be obtained in a large radius around the farm even with attractive farm-labor compensation.
It is part of the process necessary before the farm can be accepted into a federal government program that allows foreign-born (read Mexican) laborers to enter the U.S. for a temporary term to act as seasonal agricultural workers using an H-2A visa. The program is designed with a series of protections that must be met to ensure that the immigrant workforce is not taking work away from U.S. citizens who would otherwise do the work and that the prevailing wage will not negatively impact the wage structure for U.S. workers.
In agricultural circles, the H-2A program is seen as cumbersome and unable to deliver the workforce needed on America’s farms, but for some farms, it may be the only game in town.
Farm Labor Shortages
For years, several factors have been coalescing into a crisis on many of the country’s farms.
The proportion of hired workers on America’s farms has been increasing and that hired workforce has come more and more to depend on immigrant labor. The U.S. Department of Labor’s Economic Research Service notes that hired workers and contract labor provide a growing share of the nation’s agricultural workforce, up from 25 percent in 2003 to 41 percent in 2016. More recent estimates put the numbers higher still.
As this workforce has grown in importance, it has also changed in its composition. The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) said that farm laborers, graders and sorters and other temporary seasonal workers are increasingly Hispanic, with a heavy dependence on Mexican-immigrant workers.
In addition, large numbers of individuals in that workforce lack authorization to work legally in the country. They are what is commonly referred to as illegals.
The New York State Agricultural Commissioner is on record as saying that one-half of the state’s farm labor is in the country illegally. The USDA’s Economic Research Service said, “Roughly half of hired farm workers lack legal immigration status.”
When one combines that reality with a serious effort to detain and deport illegal farm workers, a bad situation for farm labor gets worse very fast. Immigration raids on farms in New York have seriously disrupted the harvesting and packaging process.
Regardless of the position one takes on the policies regarding illegal immigrants in the U.S., the reality on many of the country’s farms is an intensification of the labor shortages, leading some farms to take drastic measures, including eliminating crops, reducing labor-intensive activities in ways that impact yield, or delaying harvesting and leaving crops in the field. 
All such activities raise the price of food at the supermarket. When combined with crop disruption due to changing weather conditions, it is not surprising to see the USDA predict continued increases in basic food costs for American consumers in 2019 when dairy, vegetables and fresh fruit prices could see increases of 3-4 percent.
Government Action
Legislation has been introduced in the House of Representatives by the Democratic Chair of the Immigration Subcommittee, Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D–San Jose). H.R. 641, the Agricultural Workers Program Act 2019, seeks to impact the problem by providing, among other things, a pathway to legalization for agricultural workers already in the U.S.
The bill has 65 sponsors, all Democrats. The omission of bipartisan sponsorship may mean the bill will have trouble advancing.
In February 2019 in Atlantic City, the New Jersey State Agricultural Convention proposed a series of resolutions giving voice to the agricultural community’s concerns in the Garden State.
One resolution called for federal legislation to reform “the policies and procedures for temporary agricultural worker visa.” The group asked for Congress to address immigration reform in a comprehensive manner that would establish a clear path for legal status and provide for adequate seasonal and year-round workforce through guest worker programs.”
Ironically there are farms in New Jersey that try to use the existing cumbersome H-2A program which may require them to advertise for workers in New York, as New York farms like Triple G advertise in New Jersey.
The Pew Research Center calculates 44 percent of the farming workers in New Jersey are unauthorized immigrants. The Migration Policy Institute estimates that 5 percent of New Jersey’s population is made up of unauthorized immigrants. U.S. government figures show that population of unauthorized immigrants declined by 90,000 in the last decade.
Regardless of the political stand one takes on the issue, the numbers tell a story of an agricultural labor shortage that is not being filled by native-born Americans. California remains one of the major contributors to the country’s farm products and its Farm Bureau Federation says that over one-half of the farms in the state are experiencing severe labor shortages.
Farm to Table
In culinary circles, the phrase farm-to-table resonates with connotations of freshness and excellent cuisine. Increasingly, fruits and vegetables are touted as keys to a healthy diet. However, increasing bouts of extreme weather along with serious labor shortages on American farms portent a different experience.
Unlike other industries that do not have the problem of short windows for perishable products, America’s farms need to find a way to fix their labor problems in order to ensure that the harvest can happen when it needs to. Automation has been embraced but it cannot adequately substitute for trained labor.
An ad in one New Jersey county seeking temporary workers for a farm 500 miles away sheds light on a problem shared by dairy farmers in Wisconsin, citrus growers in Florida, grape farms in California, chili pepper growers in New Mexico and potato and onion farms in New York.
To contact Vince Conti, email vconti@cmcherald.com.