Who Will Harvest in the New World of COVID-19?
6 April 2020 On March 18, the United States Embassy and Consulates in Mexico announced that it was suspending the H-2A visa processing until further notice. In its release on the matter, the Agency said:
“The health and safety of those who work at and visit our embassy and consulate facilities is our highest priority. In response to the global pandemic COVID-19, and in line with the Mexican government’s call to increase social distancing, the U.S. Embassy in Mexico City and all U.S. consulates in Mexico will suspend routine immigrant and nonimmigrant visa services starting March 18, 2020, and until further notice. The U.S. Embassy and consulates will continue to provide essential consular services to U.S. citizens as well as emergency visa services.”
It’s a new world that we are living in as the COVID-19 coronavirus spreads and countries come to grips on public health and economic impacts to its citizens. Without a doubt, every industry in the world will be adversely impacted by this horrible virus. As our Federal and State governments respond to this daily unfolding crisis, there’s much talk about “essential services” remaining open to ensure that supply chain lines, grocery stores, pharmacies, gas stations, etc. stay open to enable the continued functioning of our society.
To put it simply, I think this pandemic is showing how “essential” farmers in the U.S. are in ensuring the food supply remains plentiful and moving across our country.
As a large part of the temporary workforce, both domestic and international, is sidelined by COVID-19 symptoms and the suspension of H-2A visas, the unknown questions that remain are:
Who will be assisting in the planting, cultivating and picking of the crops this year?
What steps can farmers take to ensure that crops aren’t rotting on the vine and continue to feed Americans in this unknown and scary time?
How Will COVID-19 Impact the Farmers Across the U.S.?
1) Aging Farmers
According to the USDA’s 2017 Census on Agriculture Data: “Ninety-six percent of farms and ranches are family owned” and “the average age of all producers is 57.5, up 1.2 years from 2012.”
USDA statistics back up the fact that American farm owners are getting closer to retirement and will soon need to make decisions on the future ownership of their farms. The COVID-19 crisis has only complicated matters. While much is still unknown about COVID-19, it’s a serious situation that seems to have more adverse impacts on older people over the age of 60 with underlying health conditions.
According to the World Health Organization: “While we are still learning about how COVID-19 affects people, older persons and persons with pre-existing medical conditions (such as high blood pressure, heart disease, lung disease, cancer, or diabetes) appear to develop serious illness more often than others.”
As a result, farmers need to now make big decisions about what the future holds for their farms if the worst case scenario happens and either they get sick, a family member gets sick, or a significant amount of their workers gets sick.
2) Impacts to Day-to-Day Operations
No one can truly tell you what impact COVID-19 will have on this growing season or on the day-to-day operations of farms across the country. What will best practices be this year? Are farmers going to make sure that they just get their irrigation system right? Will they make sure they get their inputs right?
There will be undeniably less manual labor this growing season and farmers need to take a close look at how to best maximize their output with minimal of hands to help.
3) Employing the Unemployed and Underemployed
On March 26, United States of Labor Department reported nearly 3.3 million new claims for unemployment insurance. According to Politico.com: “It was by far the largest number of unemployment claims ever recorded for a single week since the government began collecting this data in 1967, but a wide disparity in claims across various states suggests the figure could be significantly undercounted.”
This flood of people from ALL industries is likely to cause an interesting predicament and challenge for farmers who will likely be dealing with a great need to find employees who can harvest and cultivate their crops. Will unemployed and underemployed Americans who are furloughed or laid off decide to change their careers to agriculture? And what will they expect to be paid to do so with many States like California and Washington State mandating higher minimum wages?
It’s a situation that unfolds by the day and will be a question faced by farmers this growing season.
4) It Takes a Community
This crisis is going to take everyone coming together to help out their neighbors. Do whatever you can to help out your fellow farmers when they are sick, or if their equipment breaks down, or if they don’t have the hands needed for a successful harvest. Long before this crisis started, I read stories on various farming websites, like My Job Depends on Ag, of farmers coming together and helping out their neighbors in need.
Now is a great time to think how you can help.
Is a farmer in your community sick and can you pitch in and ensure their farm survives this growing season?
Can you share workforce with your neighbor?
Can you share a piece of equipment they need to harvest their crops?
We’re all in this together, and it’s going to take a community to solve this crisis.
How can you help your fellow farmer?
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