Cotton plants are ready for harvest at farm in Lake View, Arkansas. (Antoinette Grajeda/Arkansas Advocate)
“Well over half” of Arkansas’ row-crop producers rely on a federal migration program to fill jobs on their farms, according to John McMinn, an Arkansas Farm Bureau commodity and economics specialist.
The nearly 40-year-old H-2A visa program authorizes migrants to legally work in seasonal agricultural jobs in the United States. The number of certified H-2A workers in Arkansas nearly doubled from 3,366 in 2008 to 6,056 in 2023, according to an Arkansas Farm Bureau report.
Nationally, the number of approved H-2A jobs and visas increased by more than 50% from fiscal year 2018 through fiscal year 2023, with the U.S. State Department issuing nearly 310,000 H-2A visas in fiscal year 2023, according to a U.S. Government Accountability Office report.
Tyler Oxner, another Farm Bureau director of commodity activities and economics, said he’s not concerned at the moment about the Trump administration’s immigration plans because they’re mostly focused on illegal immigration.
Brooke Rollins, Trump’s pick to lead the U.S. Department of Agriculture, said she’d like to make changes to the H-2A visa during her confirmation hearing Thursday, but didn’t provide specifics.
More concerning, Oxner said, are the costs involved in obtaining the temporary work visas. Farmers Oxner has spoken to have said they wish Washington D.C. politicians would visit rural areas to see why the H-2A program is vital to Arkansas’ $16-billion agricultural sector, the state’s largest industry.
“It’s a very important program to our farmers,” Oxner said. “Sometimes it’s getting too expensive to afford it, and so that’s the biggest issue we’re facing right now.”
The minimum wage farmers must pay H-2A workers is adjusted annually by the U.S. Department of Labor and is often higher than the federal and state minimum wages.
The current minimum in Arkansas is $14.83 an hour, more than the state minimum of $11 and the federal minimum of $7.25 an hour. Host farmers also pay the visa application fees, which can run over $300, and must provide housing and transportation for the temporary workers.
Those costs come as farmers face dwindling profits because of low commodity prices and higher input costs, all of which can leave some producers with a difficult choice — scale back or shut down operations altogether.
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Specialty crop impact
The cost of the H-2A program has hit specialty crop growers particularly hard, McMinn said. Manual labor is even more important for crops like fruit and vegetables that must be harvested by hand, he said.
Hamburg and Warren in southern Arkansas are home to some of the largest specialty crop producers in the state, but farmers there are having to scale back production because they can’t afford the labor, McMinn said.
“You’re talking about a huge amount of cost that is breaking into their bottom line, and it’s kind of a scary thing, especially on the specialty crop side,” he said. “Fruits and vegetables, local foods, we’ve had a lot of big movement and progress over the last ten years of trying to promote local foods and getting people interested in it, but now we’re potentially looking at growing less.”
Oxner said it’s a misconception that migrant labor is cheaper and that those workers take Americans’ jobs.
The reality “is quite different,” Oxner said. “…obviously if you could pay somebody $11 an hour to come work out on your farm, you’d pay them the $11 instead of paying somebody else to come in and fly them in for $15 an hour. It’s just simple, and [politicians don’t] seem to understand that.”
The H-2A application fees include a $190 consulate fee, $6 border stamp fee and $100 agent fee per worker, according to the USDA. If farmers seek help with the annual application process, there are costs associated with hiring a firm to handle the paperwork.
Generational relationships
William Mencer, a fourth-generation farmer in rural north Chicot County, said his family was an early adopter of the H-2A program in Arkansas, bringing migrant workers to their southwest Arkansas farm in the late 1980s or early ’90s. His great-grandfather began farming there in the 1930s.
The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 authorized an H-2 nonimmigrant visa status for foreign workers coming to the U.S. to perform temporary services, according to a Congressional Research Service report. The 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act amended the law to subdivide the program into its current H-2A agricultural worker program and H-2B nonagricultural worker program.
The H-2A program is managed by the Department of Labor, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) and the State Department, and there are no annual limitations to the number of H-2A workers that may be admitted to the U.S., according to the Department of Homeland Security.
As Mencer’s family shifted from farming cattle to row crops like soybeans, rice and cotton, he said his grandpa took advantage of the H-2A program to help with the more intensive labor because the workforce pool was lacking in rural Chicot County.
Mencer said his family farms around 6,000 acres and could not manage that scale without the H-2A program.
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Mencer left his hometown to attend law school, but upon returning to the family farm, the labor issues haven’t gone away and have likely worsened, he said.
“It really is a real problem. I got all these jobs out here that need to get done, but nobody that wants to [do them],” he said. “I’d love to hire somebody from my own community, that’s really what I’d prefer to do because I like to see my local community thrive.”
In addition to working on the farm, Mencer also practices law and runs a separate H-2A firm that serves clients in Arkansas, Louisiana and Mississippi, filling a need in the region, he said. Many clients are downsizing because farm economics are tough right now with the high cost of chemicals and seeds and the low prices being paid for crops, he said.
“Farmers are losing money in their operations…they don’t have the money to maintain their labor force or definitely not grow it,” he said. “Some farmers are having to make really tough decisions this year as to whether or not they can even keep their labor and keep their farms in operation. It’s a sad year.”
Mencer’s family is in the process of applying for visas for seven migrant workers for the 2025 season. Many of the foreign workers have returned annually, including one who originally came on an H-2A visa before Mencer was born and has since obtained his permanent U.S. residency.
Over the years, the migrant workers have become “extended family,” so much so that some joined Mencer as pallbearers at his grandmother’s funeral last year.
“They like us, we like them. They’re part of the team,” he said. “I think it works great for everybody.”
Like Oxner, Mencer is hopeful the H-2A program won’t be negatively impacted by the Trump administration, which he expects to focus on illegal immigration.
“Hopefully it’ll be okay, but the policies are always changing,” he said. “You got to be on your toes.”
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