Immigrants play a vital role in the U.S. agricultural workforce: They make up approximately 61% of farmworkers, according to the most recently available data, but as of a 2022 U.S. Department of Labor survey, 42% were not legally authorized to work in the country, meaning they were undocumented. This would presumably be part of the group that President Trump and his team have targeted to deport.
Most people probably assume the undocumented group is unskilled labor, but our interviews with four growers with operations in Florida and California and people at industry associations suggest the opposite. “We would lose a lot of our skilled workers,” said one California strawberry grower. “Some of our more skilled people have been here for 20 or 30 years, and they speak English.” One profile that he shared was that of a highly skilled supervisor who makes important daily decisions on planting and harvesting.
Another was a skilled mechanic. A third was a crew boss with decades of experience. “These are people who came over in the mid-1980s and 1990s. They have been paying taxes and social security, but they never went through the citizenship process,” the grower said. Labor was 40% of his costs, and Trump’s statements have filled these workers and their employers with anxiety over their uncertain futures. Stay tuned if the H-2A visa program is expanded to increase the farm workers with documentation.
The Cost Advantage of Imports
Importing fruits and vegetables is often cheaper due to significantly lower wage rates abroad. This has made it difficult for U.S. farmers to compete on price alone, which has resulted in a continuing erosion of their market share. Since 2020, imports have accounted for a larger proportion of the total supply of fresh fruit in the United States. In 2022, 55% of fresh fruits were imported, up from 37% in 2000.
Source: HBR.org