Agribusinesses Concerned About Farm Labor Shortage

In our 2017 Agribusiness Wage + Land Rent Survey, farmers expressed their top concern about the future of their businesses: the uncertainty surrounding their labor supply. This year’s survey data showed that 41% of respondents had 25 or more employees during peak employment, down from 57% in the prior year. Forty-nine percent of respondents employed seasonal workers for 12 or more weeks, down from 52% the prior year. It was a tough year for business and a tough year for finding workers.This trend is nothing new. U.S. farm workers have declined steadily from 32 million to just over a million during the past century. This sharp decline in farm workers coincided with a host of technical advancements that enabled the industry to feed an ever-expanding American population with plenty to spare for export. It also coincided with substantial consolidation in farm ownership and a major shift in farm worker demographics.The National Center for Farmworker Health reported in 2012 that 72 percent of all farmworkers were born outside the U.S., and two-thirds of those workers hailed from Mexico. The USDA’s Economic Research Service estimates the share of undocumented crop farm workers at 50%.