Farmers Are Seeking More Temporary H-2A Workers, And Keeping Them Longer

The high-desert town of Palisade, Colorado, is synonymous with fresh, locally grown peaches. Years ago, thousands of migrant workers would flock here each year in October to harvest the fuzzy fruit. But today, on its narrow dirt roads, Bruce Talbott drives a truck loaded down with 9 tons of wine grapes.For more than 100 years and five generations, Talbott’s family has grown mostly peaches. But he’s diversified, he said, because in the early 2000s, that pool of labor began drying up. Now, he grows peaches, grapes, cherries and pears, all of which ripen at different points in the season.“There’s not a labor pool that would allow us to pick that volume of fruit all at once,” he said.Across the country, farmers have voiced concerns over what they say is a growing labor shortage. While there are about 2.7 million agricultural workers in the U.S. — about half undocumented immigrants — farmers say finding reliable local workers has become increasingly difficult, especially for hand-picked fruit and vegetable crops.That’s why an increasing number are turning to the federal H-2A visa program, which allows farmers to bring in workers temporarily from foreign countries. In the 2018 fiscal year, more than 240,000 H-2A visas were granted: a record and a 21 percent increase from about a year ago.