Coping with Delayed H-2A Worker Arrivals during the Pandemic

Agricultural demand remains essential under all economic conditions. The recent pandemic is a case in point when the farm sector’s real concern was not declining market demand but rather supply chain disruptions, such as the constrained mobility and availability of needed foreign contractual workers. Enforced border entry restrictions and strict screening procedures disrupted the flow of arrivals of foreign workers with approved H-2A visas. A survey was conducted among southeastern U.S. farms with approved H-2A petitions to verify if there were any H-2A labor supply disruptions during the pandemic. Results indicate that more than half of H-2A workers arrived 3 to 5 weeks later than expected. Popular farmers’ coping strategies include maximizing family labor contributions, reducing off-farm employment hours, and resorting to less labor-intensive production alternatives.