A Michigan State University agricultural economist has been awarded a $650,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture (USDA NIFA) to evaluate labour challenges affecting the U.S. food supply chain and identify potential policy options to alleviate them. 

Zach Rutledge, an assistant professor in the MSU Department of Agricultural, Food and Resource Economics, has studied issues relating to labour scarcity in the agricultural sector over the past several years. 

He said as the U.S.-based agricultural workforce — immigrant and non-immigrant workers settled within the country — continues aging and declining in number, farmers have had to make changes in their production practices, including implementing new technology on farms and contracting workers through third parties.  

The key objectives will focus on how trends in the U.S.-based workforce have influenced visa programs such as the H-2A program, and vice versa.  

The H-2A program allows U.S. employers to temporarily hire nonimmigrants from different countries for agricultural services throughout the year. Rutledge will examine how the decline in U.S.-based workers has impacted the number of workers farms hire through the H-2A program and if the program can serve as a viable substitute for labour shortages in the U.S.-based workforce. 

He’ll similarly investigate how the H-2A program’s Adverse Effect Wage Rate (AEWR), the minimum wage paid to H-2A workers, impacts the wage rates of domestic farmworkers not in the program. In 2024, Michigan’s AEWR was $18.50 per hour, an increase from $17.34 per hour in 2023 and $15.37 per hour in 2022. 

Additional objectives include understanding if the declining number of U.S.-based agricultural workers shifts the country’s dependence on fruit and vegetable imports, while simultaneously considering how such trends might translate into national or economic security risks.

The project is funded through 2028. 

Source: Michigan State University December 9, 2024 news release