Recent studies reveal that the supply of farm workers from rural Mexico, the main source of hired labor for US agriculture, is decreasing (Charlton and Taylor, 2016). Because the vast majority of hired farm workers in the United States are from Mexico, a negative trend in farm labor migration from Mexico creates challenges for US farmers. For example, Rutledge and Mérel (2022) find that the declining farm labor supply could have economically significant impacts for California’s specialty crop producers, with potential losses in the billions of dollars over the course of a decade.
Growing labor scarcity creates incentives for farmers to adjust their production practices, labor management techniques, and technology use. The COVID-19 pandemic may have strengthened these incentives, encouraging growers to switch to more labor-saving technologies or crops or to seek new ways of recruiting workers. The purpose of the 2022 Green Industry Labor Survey was to collect information about how growers are adapting to reduced farm worker availability, how the COVID-19 pandemic has impacted farming operations (including costs), and the extent to which labor-saving technologies are helping mitigate problems stemming from labor shortages. This report describes the survey response and summarizes a number of key preliminary findings.
