Should richer countries with aging populations open doors to workers from poorer countries by creating or expanding low-skill guest worker programs? Many people believe that labor shortages in some ...

In October 2025, the US Department of Labor made three major changes to H-2A regulations to reduce the cost of H-2A workers. DOL: changed the database used to set hourly Adverse Effect Wage Rates ...

Meatpacking plants have long relied on immigrant workers to staff dis-assembly lines that extract cuts of meat from carcasses. The Big Four meatpackers, JBS, Tyson Foods, Cargill, and National Beef, ...

UC Davis hosted a farm labor conference May 21-23, 2025 conference that examined current farm labor issues, continuities and changes in California farm labor over the half century since the enactment ...

US agriculture is a 50/50 industry, meaning that half of farm sales are from crops and half are the sale of animal products. California agriculture is a 70/30 state, meaning that 70 percent of farm ...

California had farm sales of $59 billion in 2023, led by $8.1 billion worth of milk; $6.5 billion worth of grapes; $4.8 billion of cattle and calves; and $3.9 billion each of lettuce and almonds. The ...

The US has 50 million or almost 20 percent of the world’s 280 million international migrants, far more than Germany (16 million), Saudi Arabia (13 million), and Russia (12 million). The US admits over ...

GAO . The GAO released a report (25-106389) in November 2024 that called for more oversight of the H-2A program and enforcement of H-2A regulations. The number of H-2A jobs quadrupled between FY13 and ...

Farm labor contractors (FLCs) are labor market intermediaries who recruit, supervise, and pay farm workers. DOL’s Wage and Hour Division defines a FLC as “a person or business who recruits, solicits, ...

The H-2A program allows US farm employers who anticipate shortages of seasonal workers to request that DOL certify their need for H-2A guest workers to fill seasonal farm jobs. DOL certifies farm ...

Census of Agriculture data released in February 2024 found that US farm sales were $543 billion in 2022, including $280 billion or 52 percent from the sale of crops and $260 billion from the sale of ...

World wine production exceeds wine consumption, putting downward pressure on wine prices. Global wine production was 258 million hectoliters or 6.9 billion gallons in 2022, while global wine ...