Progress 11/01/23 to 10/31/24
Outputs
Target Audience:On November 2, 2023, the Michigan State University Department of Agricultural, Food, and Resource Economics held a farm labor conference to investigate labor challenges that domestic agricultural employers and employees are facing, discuss potential solutions, and provide Michigan's agricultural stakeholders with information and resources to help address these challenges. The conference was sponsored by the United States Department of Agriculture's National Institute of Food and Agriculture (award number 2024-67023-41442) and the Elton R. Smith Chair in Food and Agricultural Policy.2 One hundred and twenty individuals registered for the conference and 90 guests attended in person. The specific objectives of the conference were to (i) determine the most pressing labor challenges being faced by agricultural employers and employees, (ii) identify industry and government resources that can help address these challenges and disseminate this information to agricultural stakeholders, and (iii) find and discuss (amongst academia, industry, and government) potential policy and regulatory solutions. The event was a one-day conference that convened experts who disseminated information, facilitated stakeholder engagement, and explored potential solutions to labor challenges facing US and Michigan agriculture. The workshop had two keynote speakers and three speaker panels that included: (i) government organizations involved in farm labor research, data collection, and the administration of current farm employee programs, (ii) farm labor economists from academic institutions; and (iii) farm employer and employee industry groups. Changes/Problems:
Nothing Reported
What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?
Nothing Reported
How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?We invited anyone who wanted to attend the conference to attend free of charge. Audience members heard from the nation's leadin farm labor economists and local and national farm labor experts from academia, government, and industry. The results of the conference were disseminated via a conference report I produced that can be found here:https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/342307?ln=en&v=pdf What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?
Nothing Reported
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
Speakers were asked to identify one or more labor challenges and propose policy or regulatory solutions that could address them. Participants indicated that the challenges facing employees include access to affordable housing, poor housing conditions, wage theft and other forms of exploitation, language barriers, a lack of legal work authorization, and access to transportation and medical care (see Table 1). Proposed solutions to employee challenges include a pathway to legal status for undocumented workers, more services for farmworkers, better wage and labor protections, and increased staffing for federal and state agencies to help investigate instances of exploitation. Participants explained that many of the challenges employers are facing revolve around the H-2A visa program and its minimum wage (the Adverse Effect Wage Rate), which employer advocates argue has significant flaws. Other speakers discussed challenges with technology development and recently implemented agricultural overtime rules. The proposed solutions to employer challenges include a range of revisions to the H-2A visa program, thepromotion of technology development, the inclusion of specialty crops in the Farm Bill's Price Loss Coverage program, and several others.
Publications
- Type:
Other
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2024
Citation:
Rutledge, Zachariah and Rickman, Samuel. Summary of the 2023 Michigan State University Farm Labor Conference: Understanding and Addressing Agricultural Labor Challenges in the United States. AFRE Agricultural Economics Report No. 149.
https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/342307?ln=en&v=pdf
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