Alabama Agriculture Commissioner Rick Pate chooses his words carefully when he talks about the need for more legal guest workers on Alabama farms.
Talking about any kind of immigration — even the long-standing, federal H2-A visa program that allows temporary immigrant labor in the agricultural industry — can quickly get political.
But Pate and others say more and more, the visa program is keeping Alabama farms operational.
“If you’re going to be in business, you have to have a workforce,” Pate told Alabama Daily News.
With record-low unemployment and lower-than-average labor participation, that local workforce isn’t available anymore.
Produce farmers in Alabama have struggled to find workers for more than 20 years, said Blake Thaxton, executive director of the Alabama Fruit and Vegetable Association and director of the Alabama Farmer Federation’s Greenhouse, Nursery and Sod Division.
“But we’re seeing now (labor) become an issue in other parts of agriculture, like row crops and livestock,” Thaxton said.
“… Even the row crop farmer is now having a hard time finding someone to drive a tractor across the field to prepare land and to harvest crops. They’re having to pull from (H2-A) as well.”
From plant nurseries to catfish farms, more Alabama producers are using the visas. Both Alabama Department of Labor and U.S. Citizen and Immigration Services data show an increase in application and H2-A approvals in recent years. The federal data shows just a few dozen H2-A visas issued to Alabama companies in 2017 and 2,178 in 2022.
Recently, both the Alabama Department of Agriculture and ALFA this year have been trying to raise awareness about the program and help Alabamians navigate the lengthy application.
“It’s a very difficult process to negotiate for the first time,” said Pate, who when he was farming cattle applied for the visas at least twice. His applications were never approved.
Pate’s department recently used some grant money to hold seminars on maneuvering through requirements, including proving no Alabamian wants the job being offered.
“When they enter this program, they have to show real effort to recruit domestic workers,” Thaxton said. “It’s not uncommon for the farmer to receive zero applications for these jobs. It’s the physical nature of the jobs.”
It’s also an expensive program. Thaxton and ALFA estimate it costs about $1,000 per worker. Some of that is application and visa fees. And applicants have to pay for travel to and from workers’ home countries.
And once they’re here, farmers must pay for housing. The maximum allowed stay is 10 months.
Federal rules set workers’ hourly pay. This year the minimum rate is $13.67 per hour.
Producers who do hire locally as well as through the visa program have to pay the local workers that prevailing wage as well.
The farmers federation has monitored this year proposed and implemented changes to the program, including a new rule that says workers doing specific jobs like truck or equipment driving should be paid more. It’s an issue because they’re paid that higher hourly rate all week even if they only do that specific job for a few hours.
“Even if they work 50 hours a week and only drove a truck for one hour driving watermelons to the packing shed, (the farmer) is going to have to pay the truck-driving rate for all 50 hours,” Thaxton said. “That’s really problematic for (our members) and we’ve definitely worked with our congressional delegation to make them aware of that situation and how it will affect Alabama farmers.”
The organization is now monitoring other proposed changes “Our farmers are very positive about the program; it is a necessary program for them,” Thaxton said.
“We just hope (federal agencies) don’t keep making small changes that make it unworkable and keep increasing the adverse effect wage rate where it becomes just too expensive for farmers to use.”