“The job that we’re trying to fill is very hard to fill domestically,” says Kelly Henggeler of Henggeler Packing in Fruitland. The Henggelers grow apples, peaches, plums and nectarines and are dependent on hand labor for pruning, thinning and harvesting in their orchards.
“Mechanization out in the orchard is not as advanced to eliminate hand labor,” says Henggeler, contrasting tree fruits with other crops. Seasonal workers from outside the country give their operation a reliable, consistent, dependable workforce. “If we didn’t have the H-2A program, we wouldn’t be doing this,” he says.
Filling a need
The first three quarters of 2024 saw over 300,000 agricultural workers enter the country through the H-2A program, which provides temporary visas for foreign workers to perform seasonal agricultural jobs. It is an important source of labor in the West, with California and Washington ranking third and fourth in the nation, respectively, for H-2A workers. While the Gem State doesn’t crack the top 10, “Idaho is seeing double-digit growth,” says Jennifer Uranga of Mountain West Ag Consulting. Uranga works with producers to complete the H-2A application process. “Idaho is known for high numbers of H-2A applications but small numbers [of workers per application],” she says.
Uranga adds that the increase in job descriptions seen on applications is another indicator of the program’s growth. In addition to manual labor, producers are increasingly looking to H-2A to source operators of agricultural equipment ranging from tractors to irrigation systems.
But why look to other nations for a workforce at all? Kim Kerns is a cattle and sheep rancher in Baker, Oregon, whose family has been using H-2A to hire sheep herders for two to three decades. They had always hired a U.S. herder, but she says, “It was getting harder and harder to find people with the desire and skill to herd sheep.” Their first herder was from Spain, and subsequent employees came from South America.
When Kerns leased her own band of sheep in 2012, she says, “I tried to find an American herder but I couldn’t find anyone. I was herding them myself – which is fine, but I still had to hay and work cows and do my other summer work.”
Kerns ended up turning to H-2A to hire Wilvert, the herder who has been with her operation ever since. Unlike H-2A employees in other sectors, whose contracts max out at 10 months, herders are contracted for three years before a 90-day break at home. However, the Kerns operation decided two years ago to write into Wilvert’s contract that he would go home for a few months every winter to spend time with his partner and child. After 12 years on the ranch – and one challenging year when he decided to stay in Peru – he is a valued part of the operation, and Kerns is happy to accommodate him. “He has a lot of experience, and I trust him with my sheep for long periods of time. He cares about the sheep and about the dogs,” she says.
Entering the world of H-2A hiring
Jarom Jemmett of Parma had a similar introduction to H-2A. J&S Farms is a family operation growing wheat, corn, seed crops, onions and sugarbeets in the lower Treasure Valley. In Jemmett’s childhood, each spring would see migrants coming by the farm looking for summer work. “When I first came back to the farm … there were fewer and fewer,” says Jemmett. “By 2015 or 2016, they were not showing up – or if they did, they were undocumented so we couldn’t hire them.”
Jemmett and his cousins had seen H-2A work well for a neighbor, but it took time to find a rental property to fulfill the employee housing requirement. “That is a barrier to entry,” he says.
After finding housing and filling out paperwork, J&S Farms hired three H-2A employees their first year. “They were intelligent, honest and hardworking people from Mexico who were family members of legal migrants,” remembers Jemmett. The first year went well enough that they have participated ever since, now hiring as many as 10 H-2A workers annually. They also built employee housing on the operation about four years into using the program, so the competitive Treasure Valley rental market is no longer a factor in their ability to hire.
Although H-2A workers are only on the farm seasonally, returning year after year helps them build relationships with their employers. J&S Farms took their employees on a rafting trip on the Payette River to help them experience a different side of Idaho. Photo provided by Jarom Jemmett.
Because of that experience, Jemmett recommends sorting out the housing question early. Then the paperwork begins. Most producers work with an agent like Uranga. “We make sure you have a great application put together,” she says of the agent’s role.
The application requires a range of information, from work locations to desired hours and dates to task descriptions. Sometimes that can be restricting. “We fill out the application in December,” says Jemmett. “If your neighbor asks you to farm a new field in March, your H-2A workers can’t work on that field. It doesn’t allow for much flexibility. They have their reasons for that, but you lack the flexibility you sometimes need in ag.”
Because the requirements and forms are quite involved, Uranga likes to start working with producers 90 to 120 days before the desired start labor date. Filing occurs 60 to 75 days before the start date. The agent works with recruiters in foreign countries to make potential matches based on location, skill set and other needs. An employer can even request a specific person based on past experience or mutual relationships. “You get a lot of referrals from your own employees if you are a good employer,” says Jemmett.
All about timing
For Henggeler, whose seasonal work begins in February with tree pruning, at least some contracts will be in place before he has had a chance to accurately gauge needed crew size based on weather, pollinators and other factors. “We’re kind of building a pyramid,” he says. Each group of workers stays from arrival until fall, with more workers brought in for thinning activities and still more for harvest.
H-2A requires that employers provide work for at least 75% of the hours agreed on in the contract. This way, in poor years or short harvest seasons, employers can send workers home earlier than originally planned. However, if for example, a late frost reduces need for thinning activities, producers may find themselves leaning into projects around the farm they might not otherwise have prioritized. “You want to make sure they’re busy,” says Henggeler. “They’re here to work.”
One way to alleviate the pressure to provide 35 hours per week for a full season is to participate in a shared contract. “You can cooperate with one of your neighbors so you can share the expense and share that labor,” says Jemmett. This works particularly well when neighbors are growing crops whose busy seasons are somewhat offset, such as potatoes and onions.
The shared contract option was removed in fall 2023, affecting the Jemmett operation and several of Uranga’s small clients. “It was devastating,” Uranga says. However, they will again be allowed in 2025.
Set payment
An important figure for H-2A farmers is the Adverse Effect Wage Rate (AEWR), which is released around Thanksgiving for the following year. For Idaho in 2024, this rate was $16.54 per hour; in Washington and Oregon, it was $19.25.
On one hand, says Jemmett, this prevents mid-season labor poaching among neighbors. On the other, says Uranga, “Farmers are saying it’s pricing them out of the program because they must also provide housing and transportation.” Idaho’s AEWR rose nearly 55% between 2014 and 2024, and over 60% in that decade for Washington and Oregon.
Because farms using H-2A must advertise in the U.S. before hiring a foreign worker and must pay the same rates to any workers doing the same tasks as H-2A workers, the AEWR becomes the effective minimum wage in agricultural sectors relying on the program. “The labor supply is very predictable, but the rate we pay is not,” says Henggeler. “Labor is over 50 percent of our cost. This affects everybody … It’s the biggest challenge we’re having in our industry.”
'Flawed but working'
Despite challenges, audits and criticism, the H-2A program is an increasingly important part of Western agriculture. “In my 10 or 11 years of doing this, I’ve had one employer that has stopped doing H-2A because he found domestic workers,” says Uranga. “99.9 percent of the time, once you start using H-2A, you continue using the program … I think this is one of those viable options because if the family farm wants to stay in business, they need a dependable, reliable, able workforce.”
