Six years ago, Illinois farmer John Ackerman didn't hire any contract workers at all. Now he typically hires about 22 every year through a local coordinator that helps farmers hire crews of agriculturally skilled, often Latino workers. Those teams hand-weed the soybeans Ackerman grows alongside the pumpkin and corn crops he uses for his primarily fall-focused agrotourism outfit.
He still hires about the same number of locals, around 25 part-time workers in the fall, many of them teenagers or young adults, to run sales and pick pumpkins. He enjoys mentoring young people, but says it's felt harder lately to justify hiring inexperienced workers when contract workers do the same hard, physical jobs faster and better.
A higher proportion of U.S. farms are now using contract workers, according to the most recent U.S. agricultural census data, out last month with a five-year update from the previous 2017 data. Because of the terms of their employment, those laborers have specific challenges voicing concerns about their working conditions, and are more likely to be on the front lines of climate change, facing increasing heat and extreme weather.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture defines contract labor as including contractors, crew leaders, cooperatives, or any other organization hired to furnish a crew to do a job for one or more agricultural operations. The USDA data showed an uptick in the number of farms using migrant labor, both within farms that already hired contract workers and overall.
Contract workers hired by an agency may work hundreds of miles from where they live, and may move from place to place, making it harder to keep farmers accountable for labor abuses. Some contracting agencies also employ undocumented workers, who may remain silent for fear of being deported. And though some steps are being taken at the federal level to protect migrant workers with H-2A visas for seasonal farm jobs, those regulations have vocal opponents.
Since the immigration status of many H-2A workers is tied to a single job, they may feel they have less agency to voice concerns about their workplaces. These workers can be isolated from their communities due to language barriers and their living arrangements, often on the same farms where they work. Resources like healthcare and counseling can be out of reach.
Some states have patchwork heat regulations in place for farm workers, but there are no federal rules about heat exposure in the U.S. Making a formal complaint can be fraught, though it’s a legal right. That's something Luis Jimenez, a New York dairy worker, hopes to change. He's one of the leaders of Alianza Agrícola, a grassroots organization advocating for immigrant farmworkers.
Reforming the H-2A program is a high priority for many farmers. But while they wait for that to happen, many are having to decide whether to switch to less labor-intensive crops or try to mechanize their operations. For many types of crops, that isn’t possible: USDA research shows that demand for H-2A work boomed from 2010-2019 in sectors like fruit and vegetable production, which require hand labor that isn’t easily mechanized.
As climate change makes conditions nastier, advocates hope workers will feel empowered to make their voices heard. But many contract workers “can’t advocate for rights, because if they do it, the next year or next season, the farmer just (won’t) bring the same people,” Jimenez said.
