What were the impacts of covid in 2020 on agriculture and farm labor? Three effects stand out: no widespread reports of labor shortages, more H-2A jobs certified, and more interest in labor-saving mechanization.
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The OECD’s annual migration report emphasized that immigration and temporary migration fell sharply in 2020. Both immigration and temporary labor flows are expected to fall by half in 2020 for two reasons. First, the economic recession means that employers are sponsoring fewer foreign workers for immigrant and temporary work visas. Second, governments closed visa-processing facilities and borders to prevent the spread of covid, making it hard to complete the paperwork required for immigration and temporary work abroad.
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The H-2 (A) program has since 1952 allowed US farmers who anticipate too few US workers to fill seasonal farm jobs to be certified to recruit and employ guest workers. During the 1950s, the then H-2 program certified fewer than 10,000 US farm jobs a year to be filled with foreign farm workers, while over 450,000 Mexican Braceros a year were admitted.
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Tomatoes are a nightshade flowering plant like potatoes and bell peppers. Tomatoes originated in South America and today are one of the world’s most widely consumed vegetables. Tomatoes are technically fruits, classified botanically as berries, but commonly used as a vegetable ingredient or side dish and included with vegetables in most statistical data. China produced a third of the world’s 182 million tons of fresh and processing tomatoes in 2018, followed by India, 19 million tons, the US, 13 million tons, and Turkey, 12 million tons.
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US households, what the government calls consumer units, spent an average $615 a year or $12 a week on fresh fruits and vegetables in 2019. Fresh fruits and vegetables are considered labor intensive because the wages and benefits of the hired farm workers who plant, tend, and harvest them average a third of the farm price.
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