Driving up and down the roads just outside downtown Salinas, you're likely to spot crews of farmworkers in the fields, moving swiftly in an ocean of green.

On a recent afternoon, Jesús Alba, a work crew supervisor, was watching over one group of men and women as they harvested celery.

[pullquote size='medium' align='right' citation="Jesús Alba, farmworker supervisor"]'Before, people crossed the border a lot. And now, people can’t cross. For the people who go home to their country, it’s difficult to return. They go, but then they don’t come back.'[/pullquote]

"There are a lot of farmers, a lot of crops, that don't have enough people," Alba said, as the workers around him bent down to chop celery stalks and toss them onto washing stations. "Before, a lot of people went back and forth across the border. Now, people can’t cross. For the people who go home to their country, it’s difficult to return. They go, but then they don’t come back."

California grows over a third of the country’s vegetables and two-thirds of its fruits and nuts, and a majority of the workers who tend to those crops are undocumented immigrants. But increased enforcement, coupled with an aging population of U.S.-based farmworkers, has diminished the supply of California agricultural labor in recent years.

That availability of farm labor was the number one concern growers shared with U.S. Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue during his June tour of Northern California farming communities. Purdue's visit came about a week after President Trump delayed plans for nationwide deportations of undocumented families. But when asked whether the planned crackdown would exacerbate farm labor issues, Perdue told reporters he didn’t think so.

"We’re not talking about immigration when we talk about a legal, reliable workforce," he said. "We’re talking about people who want to come and provide for their families on a temporary basis, on a seasonal basis, in the H-2A program."

Perdue was referring to a decades-old temporary agricultural visa program that enables farmers to hire laborers from other countries. Soon after Perdue’s visit, the Department of Labor announced proposed reforms that the agency said would "modernize" and "improve" the H-2A process. If approved, the changes would allow employers to stagger workers’ start dates on a single application, modify how workers’ wages are determined, require online applications and allow for e-signatures, among other reforms.

Slow Growth in California

Use of the H-2A visa program has risen steadily in recent years. But the growth in California has been gradual. This year, over 19,000 H-2A positions requested by California ranchers, farm labor contractors and other employers have been certified — the highest to date — but that's a tiny small slice of the massive migrant worker population California farmers rely on each year.

Because the H-2A program can be costly, time-consuming and cumbersome — the program is managed by three separate federal government agencies — many California growers instead prefer to enlist the help of farm labor contractors to find and hire local farmworkers, most of whom are immigrants without legal status.

But traditional hiring methods have also proved challenging of late.

A recent California Farm Bureau Federation/UC Davis survey of more than 1,000 California farmers found that over 70% said they had trouble hiring workers in 2017 and 2018. And 86% of respondents said they had raised wages in an effort to attract and keep workers.

"That workforce is getting older, and there are fewer of them than there used to be," said Bryan Little, CFBF's employment policy director. "Their kids, by and large, aren’t going into agriculture in much the same way that a lot of farmers’ kids aren’t staying in agriculture."

'Lengthy' but 'Worth it'

Central Valley farm labor contractor Ileana Arvizu, who over the last three years has brought workers from southern Mexico to California through the H-2A program, said the process was "lengthy" but "worth it."

Ileana Arvizu, a Central Valley farm labor contractor who uses the H-2A program. (Alex Hall/KQED)

One requirement of the program is to provide housing for guest workers, a deterrent for many growers in California, where housing is particularly expensive. In order to make the program work for her, Arvizu made an upfront investment that not all employers can, or are willing to, afford: She bought and renovated a hotel in Merced where workers stay while they pick tomatoes on various farms for several months during the year.

On a recent warm evening, Arvizu stood in the parking lot of her hotel, where rows of picnic tables were arranged beneath a large tent. The newest group of workers, having just returned from the day’s harvest in the tomato fields, were preparing to sit down for a dinner of chicken mole and red rice.

"Once upon a time, being a farm labor contractor was like a no-brainer. Like, labor was no issue," Arvizu said.

This year, she said, a group of workers from Mexico she had hired through the H-2A program ended up arriving in California a month late because the paperwork was still being processed.

"I had to tell the growers that I’m still in the process," she said. "So we just kinda scrambled to grab whoever was willing to come and help us."

A new group of workers, hired by Ileana Arvizu, sit down for a dinner of chicken mole and red rice after a day of harvesting tomatoes. (Alex Hall/KQED)

Farmworkers With Deep Roots

California's large population of undocumented farmworkers with deep roots in the state is another reason the H-2A program has been slow to catch on here.[aside label="related stories" tag="farmworkers"]

“The mayors of communities that I’ve talked to on an annual basis in this valley want to take care of the people of their communities,” said Manuel Cunha Jr., president of the Nisei Farmers League in Fresno.

"Why bring in new people and bust the people that are in your community? Go in and raid them? I think it’s immoral," Cunha said.

Most farmers, he added, cannot afford to pay the expenses associated with bringing H-2A workers into the country.

The United Farm Workers Foundation and the UFW union submitted over 80,000 individual public comments to the Department of Labor opposing the changes to the visa program.

Among the UFW's concerns: that the proposed changes would result in domestic workers losing jobs to H-2A workers because growers wouldn't be required to give hiring preference to domestic workers.

"The proposed changes to the H-2A program will not only have harmful impacts on the domestic farmworkers who are currently working in America’s fields but also the foreign guest workers who participate in the program," said National Field Coordinator Marichel Mejia.

"We must protect the farmworkers who have been integral members of our communities and who have years of experience as skilled laborers," Mejia said. "The Trump administration needs to recognize the hard work farmworkers do to feed the country and not implement these changes."

Ryan Jacobsen, CEO of the Fresno County Farm Bureau, said that many farmers and contractors would much rather obtain legal status for their existing workers, as opposed to bringing in new seasonal crews. And because the H-2A visa allows only for seasonal work, the program does not fulfill the need that many producers, like dairy farmers, have for a year-round workforce.

"This is a temporary patch that may work better for other states," Jacobsen said.

[ad fullwidth]

[ad floatright]

Sonny PerdueSonny Perdue

Can a Costly Guest Worker Program Meet California’s Need for Farm Labor?

Ag Secretary Shows a Softer Side on Immigration in Talks With California Farmers

Californians at Odds as Trump's Ag Pick Clears Senate Hurdle