Aug 18, 2025NPC: Ag labor solutions require work but are attainable
Our nation’s capital is a busy place for our industry now, as several key agricultural labor issues are making waves.
As always, the National Potato Council has been working closely with Congress and the Trump administration to advocate for policies that support a stable, legal and predictable workforce for our nation’s farms.
Here’s a look at the latest developments and what they mean for the potato industry.
Rollback of H-2A wage rules
A major focus has been the recent efforts to roll back a Biden-era rule that harmfully impacted how H-2A adverse effect wage rates (AEWR) are calculated.
The original idea of this wage rate was to prevent domestic workers from being undercut and replaced by foreign guest workers. The wage rate, therefore, created an artificially high minimum wage intended to level the playing field and protect U.S. workers from the “adverse effect” of competing against guest workers.
As with many government programs, that simple idea has been poorly implemented, now creating what a bipartisan group of lawmakers — including House and Senate Agriculture Committee chairs — called “unnecessary and burdensome cost increases for the nation’s farmers.” The rule expanded the types of farm work included in wage surveys, often resulting in wage determinations that don’t accurately reflect the true cost of labor for specific tasks. For example, it could require a farm operator to pay the highest possible wage for any task a worker performs, even if that task is a minor part of their job.
NPC has applauded the bipartisan efforts in Congress to roll back the rule, recognizing that these cost increases strain our family farms and threaten the stability of our food supply.
Suspension of H-2A worker protection rule
In another positive development, the U.S. Department of Labor has suspended a
contested measure that extended new protections to H-2A workers who organize to form labor unions.
This rule had been a source of significant legal uncertainty, inconsistency and
operational challenges for farmers. The Labor Department’s decision to suspend the rule, effective immediately, is a direct response to these issues and to nationwide injunctions that had already blocked parts of the measure.
NPC, along with other agricultural groups, has welcomed this move, recognizing it is a step toward a more functional guest worker program: one that allows growers to focus on their operations without the disruption of rules that were deemed unconstitutional and beyond the department’s statutory authority.
Need for comprehensive reform
These recent actions, while welcome, are only temporary fixes. As NPC has often
stated, the fundamental challenges facing agricultural labor will remain if we do not create a comprehensive reform package that addresses the long-term needs of growers and workers alike.
Today, a substantial portion of labor-dependent agriculture in the U.S. is improperly documented. This creates massive risks for the farmers who are following the rules and for the workers who perform these essential tasks.
This unfortunate situation didn’t result from some wild conspiracy by American farmers. It was the predictable response to years of inaction by lawmakers, leaving our guest worker programs out of date and unresponsive to the current needs of American consumers and the farmers who serve them.
The reality is that there is no easy button to solve this issue. The “solutions” that some propose are instead fantasies — such as forcing homeless or medically infirm individuals onto farms to magically become highly efficient farm workers, or suggesting a robot will suddenly appear with the skill and intuition to harvest like a human.
For every consumer who thinks this issue doesn’t impact them, look no further than your supermarket. None of the fruits, vegetables, dairy products or other agricultural commodities grew in that store. They arrived there through the tireless work of individuals vulnerable to a system they didn’t create, yet silently benefiting all of us each day.
How do we move away from fantasy talking points intended to avoid the issue and instead toward something productive and achievable? The NPC continues to advocate for comprehensive agricultural labor reform involving two key pillars:
- Stabilizing the current workforce: Providing a pathway for our experienced,
improperly documented workers to gain legal status to continue working. This will provide security to Americans by identifying these individuals, ensuring they are not security threats and are here to do meaningful work in feeding the nation. - Creating a functional guest worker program: Modernizing the H-2A program to
respond to the current and future needs of American agriculture. This includes streamlining the application process, offering multi-year visas and ensuring that wage rules accurately reflect the realities of farming.
The positive thing here is that these solutions are attainable. No one has more
credibility with Republicans on border security and immigration than the president. He has utilized our guest worker programs in the past and understands firsthand their limitations.
If the president got behind a serious effort to do what has been impossible for more than three decades — driving agricultural labor and immigration reform through Congress — he could provide an historic and enduring economic tailwind for American family farms.
As a new administration makes progress on issues vital to our industry, NPC is hopeful that the political will to address this critical issue will finally materialize.
The stakes are too high for all of us — growers and consumers alike — to settle for anything less than a long-term, bipartisan solution.
— Kam Quarles, National Potato Council CEO
