Protect Our Produce

The coalition was established in 2024 to create awareness about the negative impact the Adverse Effect Wage Rate (AEWR) provision is having on Michigan fruit and vegetable growers and Michigan’s fruit and vegetable economy. The annual, mandated rise in AEWR levels has made family farms unprofitable and many are choosing to opt out of production of hand-picked vegetables such as asparagus, squashes and other key fruits and vegetables grown in Michigan. The coalition was started by Michigan Asparagus and its members include: · Michigan Asparagus · Michigan Farm Bureau · Potato Growers of Michigan · Michigan State Horticultural Society · Michigan Vegetable Council · Cherry Marketing Institute · Michigan Blueberry Commission · Michigan Tree Fruit Commission · Michigan Agribusiness Association · Michigan Blueberry Advisory Committee · Michigan Apple Committee

Originally authorized under the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 as the H-2 nonimmigrant visa program, today’s H-2A program designed specifically for agriculture has its roots in the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986. This bill amended the Immigration and Nationality Act to separate the pre-existing H-2 visa program into H-2A for agricultural workers and H-2B for seasonal non-agricultural employment. It was created to address critical agricultural and food production temporary and seasonal labor needs without adding to the country’s permanent population. It was also meant to provide better oversight of the influx of foreign farmworkers in the country while protecting wages and working conditions of domestic workers. Since its inception, H-2A has become the largest temporary visa program in the United States. Important to note that at the time of its creation in 1986, U.S. was admitting about 30,000 temporary and seasonal workers, farmworkers accounting for the majority share. In 2023, the program admitted over 378,000 temporary and seasonal guest workers to the U.S. specifically for agricultural needs. The H-2A visa program is administered by three agencies: the Department of Labor, the Department of Homeland Security, and the Department of State. The program does not have any cap limitations and allows U.S. employers to sponsor foreign workers to work in the United States in agricultural jobs for less than a year if employers can demonstrate that there were no available U.S. workers for the position. It is a critical program to the health and vitality of U.S. agriculture and food production in sustaining a strong, independent, domestically produced food supply. The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) administers the Farm Labor Survey (FLS), which serves as the basis for the AEWRs paid to seasonal agricultural guestworkers working under the H-2A visa program. The wage rates were originally implemented to help prevent wage depression that might occur from foreign workers being employed by domestic farm employers. USDA survey data was to provide the basis for employment and wage estimates for all workers admitted under the program while the U.S. Department of Labor authorizes the wage rate, mandated annually. Additionally, under the DOL labor certification requirement, employers must also guarantee employment for foreign workers for no less than three-fourths of the work period and pay for their housing, transportation, and workers’ compensation insurance. It is worth noting that H-2A workers are exempt from withholding of federal income taxes and FICA payroll taxes, while no such exemption exists for H-1B visa holders.

Existing Adverse Effect Wage Rates (AEWR) established annually for the state of Michigan, when combined with the housing and transportation requirements that fruit and vegetable growers must pay, account for such a high share of overall business expense (40-55% depending on the crop) that it is no longer profitable to grow some fruits and vegetables in the state of Michigan and other fruit and vegetable growing regions in the U.S. This means that Michigan growers of hand harvested crops that utilize the H-2A guest worker program are losing money on growing and harvesting those crops. This is not sustainable, and we can expect the state of Michigan to continue to lose production of these crops and the nearly $6 billion in revenue and nearly 40,000 jobs that the fruit and vegetable industry bring to Michigan’s economy will certainly continue to decline.

In addition to paying mandated wages, growers of fruit and vegetable crops are also mandated to pay for housing and transportation of workers. These costs taken together make it nearly impossible to profitably produce some fruit and vegetable crops in Michigan and across the U.S. The U.S. Department of Labor and the U.S. Department of Agriculture work together to determine the Adverse Effect Wage Rate (AEWR) that is paid by agricultural employers to H-2A workers. In 2023, the U.S. Department of Labor published its Final Rule revising the methodology used to determine the hourly AEWR for some classes of farm workers. While the government considers many factors in setting the wage rate, profitability of the enterprise on which the responsibility of paying for wages falls is not one of the factors.

All fruit and vegetable crops in Michigan are negatively impacted by the escalating AEWR. However, hand harvested crops are most impacted because of the significant amount of labor needed to get the crops out of the field and onto consumers' plates. Michigan’s fruit and vegetable crops that are hand-harvested include asparagus, blueberries, squashes, broccoli, cabbage, apples, raspberries and strawberries to name a few.

These crops, including processing and packing, account for nearly 40,000 jobs with annual payrolls of $350 million that support Michigan’s economy.

If the current wage rate system doesn’t change soon, local fruit and vegetable growers will not be able to compete in the same market with foreign imported produce from countries with lower labor costs.