Some 56% of California farmers say they weren’t able to hire all the employees they needed at some point in the past five years.
Twenty percent of the 1,071 farmers and ranchers surveyed by the California Farm Bureau Federation in collaboration with the University of California, Davis, were winegrape growers.
The problem has gotten worse in the past two years, the study found. Of those farmers reporting employee shortages, at least 70% said they had more trouble hiring employees in 2017 and 2018.
“The survey shows farmers have tried and are trying all the tactics available to them, such as increased wages, changes in farming and cropping patterns, use of the existing H-2A visa program and automation where appropriate,” CFBF President Jamie Johansson said. “The missing element is an improved agricultural immigration system, to match willing employees with farm employers.”
The great majority of California farmers responding to the survey—86%—said they had raised wages in efforts to hire enough people.
Sixty-one percent reported they had hired a farm labor contractor to recruit employees. More than half reported they have started using mechanization and of those, 56% said it was due to employee shortages.
Thirty-seven percent said they had adjusted cultivation practices, for example by reducing or delaying weeding and pruning. About one-third, 31%, said they are switching acreage. More farmers have also sought to hire people via the H-2A agricultural visa program, but only about 6% of surveyed farmers said they had enrolled in it.
Efforts to hire U.S.-born employees on farms have remained unsuccessful. CFBF survey results in 2017 and 2019 show farmers trying a variety of tactics to fill on-farm jobs. Farmers continue to express the opinion that those efforts need to be complemented by agricultural workforce reform that provides existing employees with legal status and allows entry for future guest workers who desire to work in U.S. agriculture.
A winegrape grower said his vineyard manager “is finding it increasingly challenging to maintain a sufficient number of employees for his business. This is partly due to the climate of fear and uncertainty in the Hispanic immigrant community and lack of reform.”
Conclusions “Through the years, the H-2A program has proven inadequate for farms in California and throughout the nation,” Johansson said. “Farm Bureau will continue to work with Congress to create a secure, flexible, market-based immigration program that works better for both farmers and farm employees.”
In terms of the proportion of farmers reporting employee shortages, the 2019 results are similar to a CFBF survey in 2017, which showed 55% of farmers experiencing shortages.