By RACHEL LANE

D.C. Correspondent

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Labor shortages on U.S. farms are causing a multitude of concerns, but proposed changes to the H-2A Temporary Agriculture Program may help.

The H-2A program allows farmers to get foreign people temporary visas to assist with agriculture work. Farm groups have been asking for changes for years. Last year, the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) announced it would be working on the problem.

Last week, the proposed changes were finally released to the public. For the next 90 days, DOL will accept public comments on the changes.

The document is long, almost 500 pages, and not reviewed completely yet, but Allison Crittenden, director of Congressional Relations for the American Farm Bureau Federation, said the changes look promising and nothing she had noticed was a concern as yet. Many of the changes proposed would modernize the process.

Among the modernization plans, farmers and applicants would be able to use electronic filing and use of digital signatures. A provision allows employers the option of staggering the entry of H-2A workers on a single application.

Bob Boehm, general manager for Great Lakes Ag Labor Services, explained this change would allow farmers to put a range of dates on an application. Currently, if a farmer puts dates on the application but the date for planting or harvesting changes, they must re-file the entire application.

“A lot of folks are adjusting their production because of labor shortages,” Crittenden said – farmers are scaling back on the number of animals in herds or changing to less labor-intense crops.

There are fewer farms than just a few years ago and she thinks part of the change is because farmers could not get affordable labor. Changes to the wage rate system may help address this problem, she said.

The rate system sets a wage every year for H-2A workers; the figure is based on what farmers would need to pay domestic workers and is meant to prevent farmers from employing a foreign worker over a domestic worker, Boehm said. The change is a concern for some farm worker groups. He doesn’t think it will be a problem.

The amount of work needed to get an H-2A employee and the cost to transport them from their homes to the farm and housing are not figures the wage rate takes into account. If everything involved in getting an H-2A employee were considered, domestic workers would still be preferred.

“The domestic workforce isn’t there,” Boehm explained.

He said depending on how far the person has to travel, employing an H-2A worker would cost between $1,600-$1,800. The change to the wage rate would separate the rate into different categories based on crops or livestock.

There are also proposed changes to the 50 percent rule, Crittenden said. Right now, if a domestic worker wants a job and it is less than 50 percent through the contracted period, the farmer has to give them a job and fire one of the H-2A workers. The change to the rule would make this effective for only the first 30 days of the contract.

She said this rule is not typically a problem for farmers because few domestic workers are recommended during a contract, but farmers take time to train the workers – they would need to do this twice and let go of a worker.

While the changes are welcome news for farmers, more is still needed. Boehm said the DOL did not address year-round workers. The way the law is written, he does not think the H-2A program can be used for these people unless Congress makes a change to the law. That means dairy and other livestock farmers will continue struggling for workers.

The DOL changes also did nothing to address undocumented workers currently in the country, Crittenden said. Farmers are required to accept the documentation they are given as legal documents. If the government decides to audit the paperwork and finds it is fraudulent, it causes more problems for the farmer.

“We need a secure border, but we need to deal with the workforce that is in the country,” Boehm said.

In 2013, Michigan farmers had a rough year and small harvests; they didn’t need workers. The following year, the crops came back but the workers didn’t, Boehm said. Flexibility in the H-2A program would have assisted these farmers.

In addition to changes to the H-2A program, he said more focus needs to be put on technology. There are machines that do some of the harvesting, but picking ripe apples or strawberries, and not the unripened fruit, is still a challenge.

The proposed changes can be reviewed on the DOL website at www.dol.gov/newsroom/releases/eta/eta20190715