Editorial Board
U.S. Farms Can’t Compete Without Foreign Workers
The visa system for temporary agricultural workers is broken.
Red alert.
Photographer: Daniel Acke/Bloomberg
American farmers have been complaining of labor shortages for several years now. Given a multi-year decline in illegal immigration, and a similarly sustained pickup in the U.S. job market, the complaints are unlikely to stop without an overhaul of immigration rules for farm workers.
Efforts to create a more straightforward agricultural-workers visa that would enable foreign workers to stay longer in the U.S. and change jobs within the industry have so far failed in Congress. If this doesn’t change, American businesses, communities and consumers will be the losers.