Help wanted: how farmers are dealing with labor shortages (2023)

John Jensen knows what it's like to be the hired man. The central Iowa farmer grew up the son of a farmhand, and it hasn't always been an easy life. The family moved a lot, often raising the stakes in March, the end of an employee's annual season.

“For 18 years of my life, I was the son of a day laborer, so I know what it's like on that side”, he says.

“I saw the landlord go into town on Saturday, while Dad and I could stay and shovel manure or something. So I understand that man's point of view."

To establish himself in agriculture, Jensen worked hard, with a welder and a lot of sweat to build a large and diverse operation.

“I made all my own machines for 20 years,” he says. (This includes assembling some of the largest planters, tillage equipment, and combines ever used in the Corn Belt.) Working with an equipment manufacturer, Jensen built the first 12- and 16-row corn rigs. He operated a 24-row planter in 1980 and a 16-row corn header in 2001. Now he operates even larger equipment, including a 54-row planter.

Jensen has created a successful and diversified operation, blending custom farming with his own row crop production. The family also operates a custom wheat harvesting business during the summer. Side businesses include sweet corn and pumpkins, as well as a custom metal crafting setup.

For Jensen, the size and diversity of the operation requires him to pay close attention to the work side of the equation, which combines family (two children and their spouses), a full-time employee and a part-time job.

Jensen's workforce roots keep him conscious of how he needs to manage his employees.

“The key is to treat everyone with respect,” he says. “It's also important that everyone has their own operations department. That way we don't have everyone tripping over each other."

A high-tech operation like Jensen's requires people with advanced skills, the type of employees that are hardest to attract and keep, say farm labor experts.

Aaron Schneckloth, a recent college graduate, was hired to bring some special technology skills to the operation and has become an integral part of the farm's continued growth and success.

Schneckloth says he keeps busy “with anything and everything” on the farm, but Jensen's innovative approach to technology has drawn him to a job on the farm.

“If there is a place that uses more technology, I don't know where it would be”, he says. "They're not afraid to try something new."

In addition to the opportunity to operate large equipment and experiment with new technology, there is another factor that influences Schneckloth's suitability for the farm. Jensen gave him good fringe benefits and a share of the 200-acre crop.

“John is open to listening and treated me well,” says Schneckloth. “He is also willing to help me start my own operation.”

However, the distribution of shares is not a handout. "I don't want it to feel like John just 'hands me' acres and then I call them mine," says Schneckloth. “I spent over 10 years working hard for what I could achieve.”

From Jensen's point of view, the former employee's son says: "I try to let him have a say in the operation."

Finding and keeping good help like Schneckloth is not easy. Jensen was somewhat reluctant to be interviewed for this story, fearing that the publicity would draw attention to a valuable employee.

Many job offers

Jensen's reluctance is understandable. Nationwide, there are two jobs available in agriculture for every new job seeker, says Miranda Driver of CalAgJobs, an organization that works to connect agricultural businesses with employees. In California, there are four jobs available for every applicant.

CalAgJobs primarily deals with agronomic positions. But the need for workers exists at every level, she says.

“Everyone who talks to us says they can't find people to work in the fields and orchards. Finding reliable labor has become very difficult,” says Driver.

Furthermore, given the changing nature of the workforce, it is more difficult to find local people who want to work in the fields. Traditional agricultural workers, such as Hispanics, are transitioning to higher-paying jobs in other industries. Mexican workers are finding new opportunities at home or are often restricted by immigration policies.

Furthermore, the "elephant in the room" is that many farm workers are not legally employed in the United States. More than half of all farm workers are not authorized to work in the United States, according to a National Survey of Farm Workers.

Because of these issues, employee recruitment is a particularly difficult issue for large livestock operations and specialty crop producers.

"America's agriculture desperately needs solutions to deal with labor shortages. This is particularly true of the labor-intensive specialty crop industry," according to the authors of a recent article in the journaloptions, a journal of agricultural economics.

The top 4% of US farms account for 66% of total farm sales and employ 42% of contract farm workers, according to the USDA. Among unauthorized workers, 90% worked on special crops.

“Our biggest problem is that we have a hard time finding good people on the farms,” said Jimmy Pollock, production manager at J.C. Howard Farms in North Carolina.successful agriculturein Pork Powerhouses magazine's most recent annual report. “Work permits are not renewed and the flow of new workers has slowed down,” he said. “Many workers are unsure and don't know what to do.”

A Kansas feedlot operator told Bloomberg News last year simply, "I need more Mexicans."

But it's not just big operators and specialist crop growers who are struggling to find employees. The same goes for moderately sized operations in the Midwest, where many growers may only be looking for part-time seasonal help or a full-time employee or two.

"The traditional way of tapping into your neighborhood network to hire part-time underemployed locals with farming experience, mechanical skills and good animal instincts has become more challenging," says Joe Horner, an agricultural economist at the University of Missouri, whose experience includes farm labor management.

“Farmers who need to hire 'unknown' candidates need to further formalize the process. They are more concerned about detection (especially drug testing), training, compliance with labor laws and correct termination,” says Horner.

Horner and fellow US agricultural economist Ryan Milhollin have developed a new guide to hiring and managing contract labor (see sidebar, page XX).

Hiring a good worker and providing fair compensation can be a tricky process. The main goal, Missouri experts say, is to make sure you don't end up paying your hired help more than you pay yourself.

“Total labor costs are greater than wages,” says Horner. “Finding good employees, training them properly and keeping them happy so they can add value to the entire business is critical.”

I can't keep up

Most American farms do not need hired labor. When they do, the reason is usually that the family can no longer keep up with the workload.

And sometimes fate intervenes in carefully laid plans; New circumstances fall from the sky.

In 2009, when Todd Cassebaum's father unexpectedly passed away, one of the big questions for the farm's future was how to grow the operation without him. The farm was inherited by Todd's grandfather, who settled in southern Alabama in the late 1920s. The hope was to expand the operation so that son August could be a part of his future.

“We didn't hire workers until Dad died,” says Cassebaum. “It was an experience that changed my life. It was just me and my dad. We were able to do it ourselves."

Todd's wife, Hope, is a key contributor to the operation, helping with bookkeeping and other tasks. However, if there was to be a next chapter in the farm's story, Todd realized that slave labor would have to play a role.

The farm is complex and diverse. On approximately 1,200 acres, the family grows corn, oats, wheat, millet, peanuts and cotton. He operates a 150-head operation of cows and calves, divided into four herds, pre-conditioning weaned calves to 750 pounds. Much of the farmland is irrigated and it is not uncommon for the family to grow up to three crops in a field during Alabama's long growing season.

While many modern farmers are starting to recruit their employees as professional human resource managers, some are still going the old way: they come into the neighborhood to find people with agricultural backgrounds and mechanical and livestock skills. The Cassebaums were able to hire that type of person, Rick Fleming in 2009, and then a second employee, Ted Dennis.

“They were my friends before I hired them. Both are good, skilled guys,” says Cassebaum. "Every morning, they are here before me."

“There are some farmers around here who would really like to find employees like them,” says Cassebaum.

In addition to the two full-time employees, Cassebaum hires students and others as temporary labor for the farm's vegetable garden, which runs from Memorial Day through Labor Day.

Even with all the hired help, there is a mountain of work that strains available resources. “This place is go, go, go all the time. There's no downtime here,” says Fleming.

“And that means everything: repairs, concrete, electricity, livestock, field work,” he says. "If you screw something up, you have to fix it."

Temporary workers can work

For those who cannot find skilled local labor, the solution may be to use the federal H-2A program, which allows agricultural employers to recruit foreigners in the United States for temporary jobs.

“We don't have enough work to go through the hassle of using the H-2 program year-round,” says Hope Cassebaum. "We just can't justify that, that means working 12 to 13 hour days when needed."

On the other side of Baldwin County, in Daphne, Alabama, Joel Sirmon is required to use the guest worker program. Sirmon, in partnership with his brother James, grows cotton, peanuts and sweet potatoes on 4,000 acres. Sweet potatoes require at least 100 workers for planting and harvesting. James employs another 10 to 12 workers throughout the year for the packaging plant.

“Sweet potatoes are manual labor,” says Sirmon. “They are a lot of work. But they go hand in hand with cotton and peanuts and really help our results.”

In addition to the four full-time employees, Sirmon also has a team leader to manage the H-2A program, which is recruiting intensive, communicating across language barriers and paperwork.

The program worked fine for the most part. “Most workers are very good people. All they want to do is work.”

In recent years, however, it has become increasingly difficult to recruit workers.

“Every year, it gets worse and worse. In the last two years, we've had problems getting people across the border,” says Sirmon. “This year it took them another week to enter the country. But they came right at the last minute."

Sirmon hopes that immigration issues will no longer be played like political football and undermine agriculture's ability to recruit seasonal workers.

“All the paperwork [for the H-2A program] is a hassle,” says Sirmon. But it works and we are blessed with what we have."

To solve the agricultural labor shortage, a combination of forces will need to come into play, experts say. Immigration reform will need to be addressed at the national level. The temporary worker program should be streamlined. More training for workers is needed. And higher wages and better benefits may be necessary for agriculture to compete with other industries for workers.

The American Federation of Farm Bureaus is lobbying for reform of the guest worker program, an "adjustment of status" for unauthorized workers and a "market-based program" for temporary and permanent workers.

"Increasing immigration enforcement without also reforming our work visa program will cost the United States $60 billion in agricultural production," the organization states on its agricultural labor policy page.

However these problems develop, farmers can take matters into their own hands in many cases, as the farms of Jensen, Cassebaum, and Sirmon did.

“Farmers are thinking outside the box for sure,” says Joe Horner. “More people are willing to pay for year-round employees, even if they don't need them year-round, just to keep good people. Furthermore, as farmers begin to hire more skilled workers to operate more equipment and technical systems, farmers seem more open than ever to using capital in the operation as a way to motivate higher-ranking employees to stay and help build. the business."

Hiring Aaron Schneckloth's John Jensen is that kind of "outside the box" thinking: hiring a skilled worker to help manage new technology meant providing motivation and special incentives: good benefits, a voice in the operation, and an opportunity for a young man. Get your own share of farming and start a family. Schneckloth and his wife Julie were expecting their first child in December.

The reward: "It's nice to have someone here on the farm who knows more about technology than I do," says Jensen.

Replacement of labor by technology

Across the country, farms of all types and sizes are moving to replace labor with new technology. Over time, the result was fewer workers and higher wages.

In the Corn Belt, farmers continue to expand the size and automation of their equipment. In the west and southeast, where most specialty crops are grown, growers are looking for mechanical systems to replace workers who are increasingly hard to find.

In California, Driscoll's is working to develop a robotic machine to pick strawberries, a labor-intensive crop. However, production of some of the state's 200 specialty crops may be lost or reduced due to the difficulty of mechanizing painstaking manual labor.

In the south, Joel Sirmon Farm has found that automated steering systems and other technologies can reduce the need for additional labor. “We have a young man from the Auburn Tech Lab, as well as an 82-year-old employee who uses automatic driving,” he says. “It takes a lot less stress for the man who is digging. The 82-year-old man who uses automatic steering can dig peanuts all day.”

In North Dakota, Mark Rohrich is able to work on the farm in large part because of his use of precision farming and no-till farming. Rohrich, who grows spring wheat, soybeans, corn and sunflowers, says, “If we didn't grow no-till, we wouldn't be able to cover the acres that we grow. Larger equipment and guidance put less stress on the operator.”

The trend toward more technology is accelerating among farms of all types, say Joe Horner and Ryan MIlhollin, agricultural economists and agricultural labor experts at the University of Missouri.

“We've seen farmers invest in bigger equipment and self-steering technologies to cover more acres, faster and with fewer errors,” says Horner. “We see dairy farmers investing in robotic calf feeders and more are considering robotic milking systems. Dairy farmers are also investing in more heifer pens near dairy facilities to reduce labor resources, better manage heifers and reduce pasture investment.”

Large pig farms are switching to electronic sow feeding due to a shortage of skilled labor.

The other side of the coin of greater reliance on new technologies is the need for skilled and skilled workers to operate the equipment. At John Jensen's farm in Iowa, employee Aaron Schneckloth was hired for his college degree in agricultural systems technology along with his good work ethic.

The game has been good. Jensen has an employee up to date with technology trends, and Schneckloth has found a tech-focused farm to launch his career.

But at the end of the day, farm work will never end. Many agricultural jobs will always require a human touch. As Mark Rohrich says, "Technology certainly helps, but there's still work to be done."

New guide to farm labor management

A new publication will help farmers do a better job of hiring and keeping workers in a competitive work environment, say the authors.

“Many farmers tell us that their workforce is changing, becoming scarcer and arriving with different expectations,” says co-author Joe Horner. “Our Missouri Farm Labor Guide is designed as a comprehensive employment resource for farmers who hire more workers and find themselves competing with non-agricultural employers.”

The guide covers:

• Recruitment
• Hiring
• Induction
• training and mentoring
• Operations
• Retention
• Termination.

“By understanding these six steps, employers will establish a sound approach to human resource management,” say the authors.

The Missouri Farm Labor Guide offers a downloadable, fillable employment application and hiring checklist. The guide also includes extensive lists of practical resources from other universities, government agencies and private sector sources, includingsuccessful agriculture.

It is available at:http://www.agebb.missouri.edu/commag/farmlabor/