America’s shrinking agricultural workforce

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NICK EICHER, HOST: Today is Wednesday, February 18th.

Thank you for turning to WORLD Radio to help start your day.

Good morning. I’m Nick Eicher.

LINDSAY MAST, HOST: And I’m Lindsay Mast.

Coming next on The World and Everything in It: a declining workforce in agriculture.

As domestic labor pools dry out, farmers must go elsewhere with their job postings. But the cost to hire outside the U.S. is steep.

Farmers are trying to figure out a solution with disappointing dead-ends. 

WORLD's Emma Eicher has the story. 

EMMA EICHER: The agricultural industry is on the hunt for American workers.

But nobody seems to want the job.

KEITH ECKEL: It's not a desirable job. You do not have people lined up wanting to do that work.

In 1949, when Keith Eckel was only two years-old, his father moved the family out to the country.

ECKEL: My dad was a risk taker. My mom was not. Both were extremely hard workers.

From dust came an enterprise: Fred W. Eckel Sons farm. The business grew every year, requiring more employees. In the ‘60s, Keith worked alongside 80 year old grandmothers, picking rows of tomatoes in scorching heat.

ECKEL: It was like having five grandmothers in the field, they were great people, great people. Now it’s a different time, and we have to adjust to the times.

Today, you won’t find any grandmothers out in Eckel’s fields. 

In 1990, 76% of farm workers were American. Today, it’s less than half that number.

Many in the agricultural industry suspect that young Americans just don’t consider farming as a viable career.

JOHN WALT BOATWRIGHT: But the reality is, those domestic workers are becoming fewer and fewer to find.

John Walt Boatwright works at the American Farm Bureau Federation. He’s the Director of Government Affairs.

Boatwright says many Americans think any job in agriculture automatically means hard manual labor. That perception drives young workers away.

BOATWRIGHT: You have people who are more removed from agriculture than they have historically been. People don't aspire to be farm workers, necessarily, at least in the United States …

SOUND: [People chatting]

In Hershey, Pennsylvania, farmers from all over the state gather at Hershey Lodge for the 75th annual meeting. Most attendees are middle-aged and older, but in the thick of the crowd, there’s a gaggle of young adults with the words “YAP” printed on their name tags.

It stands for Young Ag Professionals. They aim to teach younger people about career opportunities and foster leadership.

JOHN MARK MILLER: We, we need more farmers …

John Mark Miller is a Young Ag Professional, and he says the industry needs youth.

MILLER: We are basically less than 2% of the population at this point in the U.S., and yet we still continue to feed us and the world.

From his perspective, many college-aged adults don’t consider agriculture because it doesn’t pay enough.

MILLER: Farming is a very slow burn job. If you do a good job of it, you do well at it, and you continue to grow and expand to the point that you have what you need to live off of, you'll get there in the end. But from a base level, I think there is, it's still a cash issue.

But others say the industry has already tried to combat that. Members of the Farm Bureau Federation tried raising wages. John Walt Boatwright again:

BOATWRIGHT: We've had so many farmer members who have sought to hire domestic workers and raised their advertised rates, and still haven't been able to attract domestic workers.

Another solution is the H2-A Agricultural Worker Program, which helps farmers find migrant workers when they can’t fill a job with domestic workers.

BOATWRIGHT: And it's over 400,000 certified positions in the H2-A program nationwide. That is a true measure of the market need.

But the H2-A visa program works only for those who can pay the high cost.

BOATWRIGHT: Our economist did some analysis and said, with the visa fees, the estimated cost associated with housing and transportation involved, you're looking at $11,000 per worker before they even get on the ground.

That’s a hefty number for the family-owned farms which make up about 95% of the U.S. agriculture industry.

But for large farms, H2-A visas are a necessity. Here’s Keith Eckel:

ECKEL: Today, I grow about 500 acres of corn for grain, about 300 acres of soybeans, about 25 acres of sweet corn. We've been blessed with great employees …

Eckel eventually became the president of the Pennsylvania Farm Bureau through his decades of work in agriculture. 

ECKEL: In 1900, 23% of the population lived on the farm, and they fed 100 million people. Today, 1.4% of the population lives on the farm, we feed a nation of 330 million. The productive capability of this nation has increased so dramatically that it's literally unbelievable.

Despite the decline in farms, Eckel is still optimistic about where the industry is headed.

ECKEL: I just have to look back to 1900 with those statistics and think of what a remarkable job agriculture has done in producing food and fiber for this country.

Others share his cautious optimism. 

Tomorrow, we’ll have the story of two farmers who hope to keep the farm in the family, passing down a legacy of hard work.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Emma Eicher, in Hershey, Pennsylvania.

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