Since the coronavirus swept Ohio in the spring and summer of 2020, the number of applicants reacting to ads for farm workers in local newspapers and internet forums has dropped considerably.
To make up the shortfall, farmers try to tap into the H-2A visa program, which provides a pool of foreign laborers that Ohio farmers are increasingly using as domestic workers leave the labor force. H-2A brings farm workers to the US on a seasonal basis.
Ohio farmers brought 3,733 H-2A visa holders to the state in 2021. Nearly all of them came from Mexico and Central America. That figure makes up roughly half of the state's reported agricultural workforce (although the number of undocumented immigrants working on Ohio farms is impossible to pin down, experts say) and is on pace to rise substantially this year. Ohio employers brought 2,272 H-2A visa works here in just the first half of the year.
The increase would outpace the program's usual 10% annual growth, said Martin Hansen, outreach and marketing coordinator for El Salvador's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which has a program that assists workers and employers with the process.
Ohio farmers have raised wages and are offering more benefits like health insurance, but still can’t compete with big box retailers who advertise starting wages of up to $16 per hour, said Margaret Jodlowski, an agriculture labor economist in Ohio State’s department of agricultural, environmental and development economics..
Source: eu.dispatch.com