Farm Labor Bill Answers Agriculture’s Call for Reform

SAWA restructures a flawed methodology by adopting reforms by the U.S. Department of Labor following the welcome discontinuation of the USDA Farm Labor Survey. The new rule also recognizes the extensive nonwage costs associated with the program and factors those costs in into the final AEWR determination. Along with codifying the Trump administration’s October 2025 AEWR reforms, which will save farmers hundreds of millions of dollars in inflated costs, SAWA adds sensible reforms to by capping year-over-year growth and eliminating mid-contract changes, thereby limiting the unpredictability that has long plagued the program.

The involvement of three Cabinet-level departments (Labor, Homeland Security, State) and various state agencies that poorly communicate with each other and the employers and employees they serve has long undermined the program’s efficiency. For example, delays, backlogs and other inefficiencies have become too common in the petitioning process, which results in lost time on the farm and reduced productivity, which hurts a farm’s preparedness and economic sustainability.

SAWA directs the agencies to create an online platform as a single point of access for growers and reinstitutes the in-person interview waiver for returning H-2A workers who have a proven history of vetting and reliability. Importantly, SAWA also designates H-2A workers as essential, which will keep government funding disruptions from halting the program’s functionality.

The current H-2A program only provides farmers with a seasonal and temporary workforce. This limited eligibility prevents the many sectors in production agriculture with year-round – and sometimes even hourly – labor needs from using the program. These sectors include, but are not limited to, operations like dairies with consistent milking needs, horticultural operations with plants at various stages, and livestock operations with varying animal husbandry needs.

SAWA strikes the seasonal requirement and clarifies the temporary designation for workers just under a year’s length. And the legislation ensures that many previously precluded sectors will be eligible for H-2A workers, including dairy and livestock occupations. Coupled with additional reforms, SAWA provides a long-desired option for farmers with year-round needs to secure a labor force where domestic interest in this work is absent.

The Time to Address Agricultural Labor Shortages is Now

Our agricultural workforce challenges are complex, multi-factored, and often misunderstood. Federal policymakers should seek to understand the labor needs of family farms and the direct implications for U.S. competitiveness in the global landscape. Struggling with this persistent and defining problem for decades, so many family farms – nearly 200,000 in the past decade, in fact – have closed down.

With the farm economy currently underwater in so many areas, Congress has an obligation to get the Securing Agriculture’s Workforce Act on the president’s desk. For the sake of family farm sustainability and national security, Farm Bureau urges lawmakers to pass this critical legislation as soon as possible.