The latest piece from Farm Progress, “The farm labor fix that never quite arrives,” follows a familiar script. Farmers need more migrant labor. Congress keeps failing to deliver comprehensive reform. Specialty crop industries in places like the Southeast have grown on the backs of this workforce. The solution, we are told, is yet another expansion or modernization of guest worker programs so the current system can keep humming along.
That is not a fix. It is a refusal to confront the real problem. People shilling for ever more immigrant laborers are not seeking to repair our broken system. They are practicing Farm Progressivism: propping up an industry model that depends on a steady supply of cheap foreign labor rather than demanding the industry adapt to American realities.
If an industry cannot operate without a mass influx of low-cost foreign workers, then that industry needs reform. Our immigration laws do not. America already has large numbers of legal workers and immigrants. We do not need to keep flooding the market. When Americans refuse to line up for these jobs, the reason is straightforward. The pay and conditions are often poor. They do not provide enough to support a life as an American citizen in the United States. Immigrants frequently access special benefits and aid unavailable to citizens. Also, a significant share of the money they earn is sent out of the country as remittances rather than circulating in local economies. The constant influx drives up housing costs in rural areas, alters the culture and demographics of small towns, and undercuts wages for the Americans who remain.
Read the room, Zippy and the Farm Progressives. Most Americans do not want continued large-scale immigration that transforms communities and suppresses labor markets. Poll after poll and election after election show broad opposition to policies that prioritize foreign labor over domestic workers and citizens. Treating rural America as an economic zone where normal labor market rules do not apply is not sustainable politics or good economics.
We already possess advanced automation technologies. Harvesting equipment, precision agriculture tools, robotic systems, and improved crop varieties continue to advance. Other industries faced with rising labor costs invest in capital and productivity. Agriculture should do the same instead of lobbying for more workers who accept conditions Americans reject. Young Americans are looking for jobs that pay a living wage and offer a path to stability. Raising compensation, improving working conditions, offering year-round employment where possible, providing better housing or transportation, and partnering with vocational programs can attract domestic workers. Some operations may need to shift crop mixes, scale differently, or accept that certain highly labor-intensive production is better suited to places with different cost structures.
There are other practical paths. Streamline training and apprenticeships that connect rural youth and underemployed Americans to farm work. Expand research and adoption incentives for mechanization in specialty crops. Enforce existing labor and immigration laws evenly so that legal workers are not competing against an underground economy. Encourage cooperatives or shared labor pools among smaller farms. Prioritize citizens and permanent residents already here before importing more temporary workers.
The Farm Progress article notes decades of stalled bills and industry support for greater access to migrant labor. That pattern reveals the preference: preserve the low-wage model rather than modernize it. Dependence on an exploited underclass is not progress. It is a subsidy that shifts costs onto American workers, rural communities, and taxpayers. True farm progress means building a system that can thrive with the people already in this country, higher productivity, and wages that reflect the value of the work and the cost of living here. Anything less is just Farm Progressivism in a different package.