The farming industry is warning that immigrant visa restrictions due to the coronavirus pandemic could mean a loss in farm labor sharp enough to hurt its ability to get many items to grocery store shelves.
“If the policy holds, we will have some very serious shortages of labor,” said David Puglia, president of the Western Growers Association, which represents farmers in Arizona, California, Colorado, and New Mexico. Puglia said that the severity of the shortages would depend on the region and the commodity.
Asked if the labor problem could result in shortages on grocery store shelves, Puglia replied, “That’s possible.” He explained, “It would be very difficult at this late stage to close all of those labor gaps because this is all happening unplanned. We can’t flip things around that quickly.”
The Department of Homeland Security on Wednesday stopped processing new applications under the H-2A program, which provides visas for temporary farmworkers. Returning workers can have their visas renewed, provided they received their last authorization within the last year. More than 77,000 H-2A visas were certified in March and April last year, about one-third of all recipients, according to the Labor Department.
The groups described the administration’s policy as a reasonable compromise under the circumstances but warned it has to be closely monitored. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo sought to reassure the industry, telling reporters Friday that the administration would work to ensure agricultural workers were still available. “We need to do everything we can to keep that part of our economic lifeblood working,” he said.
An official at one trade association said they had been assured that H-2A workers who are eligible to have visas renewed were being prioritized at consulates. Even so, the industry faces a potentially severe labor problem. The associations estimate that about 40%-50% of the total H-2A applications made annually are for new visas, not renewals. The current prohibition on new applications could, therefore, cut the number of available seasonal farmworkers by about half. And that’s not counting the fact that many of those workers may not want or be able to leave home due to the virus.
Nor can they be easily replaced. Contrary to what some might assume, these visa holders aren’t unskilled labor. Modern farming involves a lot of technology, including heavy equipment, that the workers must be familiar with, as well as other skills that ordinary people won’t possess.
“Most people think of H2A workers as just manual labor, but they’re not,” said Bill Bordon, president of the American Soybean Association.
Farming involves a lot of rules to ensure that harvesting is sanitary, for example. H-2A visas workers are often trained to tell at a glance which fruits and vegetables are spoiled or bad and to avoid harvesting them. The skills can be taught, but not immediately. The vast majority of the seasonal farmworkers brought in through the visa program already know them. While some new visa holders can be trained on the job, the industry needs most to already have the skills.
“We’ve had a chronic labor shortage for over a decade,” Puglia said. “That has increased reliance on the H-2A visa program.”
An application for a new visa doesn’t mean the workers are doing farm work for the first time, either. It may simply mean that an applicant‘s prior visa expired before it could be renewed. Trade groups estimate that more than half of the applicants have done the work previously.
Another factor is that while 93% of the H-2A applicants come from Mexico, according to American Farm Bureau Federation, the rest are flown in from countries as far away as South Africa. That may no longer be feasible under the travel restrictions, so the labor pool will be shrunk even further.
“One of my members only hires H-2A workers from South Africa from a certain area because they are all generally-trained in this expensive equipment,” Gordon said.
