AFBF: H-2A Remains Vital For The Industry

Demand continues growing for farm labor through the H-2A program.  John Walt Boatright, director of government affairs for the American Farm Bureau Federation, said that even though the increase in positions certified was small, it still demonstrates how important the program is.

"We saw H-2A positions increase by 2% at 384,900 H-2A positions certified in fiscal year 2024, which means that's the amount of demand that farmers and ranchers have in the United States for seasonal agricultural labor, and that was 6,000 more in terms of true position certified over fiscal year 2023.”

He said this year’s slower growth only seems that way due to significant historical increases in program usage.

“Well, we have seen increases year over year, but we haven't seen the explosive growth that we've seen in the H-2A program in, say, the past ten years or so, so we are seeing a slowdown in the increase, but an increase nonetheless.”

Boatright said the high burden placed on employers is likely a factor in slower demand for temporary workers.

“The avalanche of rulemaking that's happened over the past couple of years. We've seen 3,000-to-4,000 pages of new regulations over the past two years affecting agricultural employers, and we're also looking at the per-worker cost of bringing in these H-2A workers," he noted.  "So, we saw petition fees increase over the past year or two. We've also seen, in certain states, minimum wage increases that will certainly directly impact H-2A wages.”

Florida remains the largest employer of H-2A workers, accounting for 47,396 positions certified this fiscal year, 12.3% of all positions certified. It remains in the top spot despite a decrease of nearly 9% from fiscal year 2023.  There has been some shuffling in the rest of the top ten H-2A employer states.  After an 8% decrease in positions certified, California this year moved them to the third-largest H-2A user at 9.7% of total positions, Georgia increased their positions certified to 43,436, making them the second-largest H-2A state (11.3% of positions). Washington and North Carolina round out the top five with 35,884 and 27,532 positions certified, respectively, with both seeing increases from fiscal year 2023.

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