Finding the right farm employees and keeping them doesn’t seem to be getting any easier.
This reality isn’t just something Rich Guebert works on when developing policy as the Illinois Farm Bureau president. He also lives it as a farmer.
It’s not a new challenge for him and his son Kyle, who grow corn, soybeans and wheat in Randolph County in southwest Illinois. Kyle also has a small cow-calf herd.
“It’s been ongoing pre-COVID,” Guebert says of labor challenges, but “we’ve been fortunate to have an employee for 43 years.”
Having one reliable employee worked well until the father-son team grew their operation by another 800 to 900 acres and needed more help. They hired a young man with a commercial driver’s license and experience. That worked well until he was offered a job at a rock quarry earning more than $70,000 annually.
“We just could not compete with that. We were happy for him but not for us. It put an extra strain on us,” Guebert said.
They managed by working longer hours themselves. They hired a new employee in August 2022 — this time without experience.
“In May, in the middle of planting season, he told us the long hours didn’t work for his family,” Guebert said. “It’s hard to find labor. They want to work 40 hours a week, from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m.”
Family makes a difference in filling the farm labor gaps.
“Kyle’s wife and my wife fill in for us,” he says.
Among other things, they drive combines at harvest. The family also hires individual truck drivers who assist with harvest, he said.
Finding labor is just as challenging in Canada, dairy farmers there told journalists attending the International Federation of Agricultural Journalists Congress June 29.
VandenBroek Dairy near Olds, Alberta, in western Canada hires workers from Mexico — especially families, says Teun VandenBroek, who immigrated with his siblings and parents from the Netherlands in 2000.
Today the family milks 580 cows three times a day in a rotary dairy and has 1,700 acres of pasture.
“We have 20 employees,” he says.
They all come from the same northwest region near Mexico City. The men they’ve hired work full time, and their wives often help. When their children are here, they are more likely to stay in the community, he says.
“We hire people as a family,” VandenBroek says.
First, they go through college courses here and get some work experience. Two families have been here for five or six years each, says Arie, Teun’s father, who would like the families to stay.
Guebert knows pork and dairy farmers who are having “tremendous” challenges in finding employees. Some of them turn to the H-2A temporary workers program, which brings non-immigrant, foreign workers for jobs they can’t fill locally.
Some farmers with 40,000 to 50,000 acres to crop are using the H-2A program, with employees coming to the U.S. from March through harvest, he says.
There is a tremendous amount of paperwork involved, and it is expensive to pay for employees to come and go from their country, pay good wages, and provide housing and transportation for them, but “it’s the cost of doing business,” Guebert says.
The H-2A option for hiring isn’t a good match for what Guebert needs.
“We have feelers out all over the place,” he said. They have hired a part-time college student for the summer and are connected to programs for high school juniors and seniors as they build interest in careers.
Finding and maintaining labor is an integral part of specialty crop and agritourism operations as well, and every farm has a different way to cope with the labor challenges, says Raghela Scavuzzo, IFB’s associate director of food systems development. Some use H-2A employees, adjust their farms to be pick-your-own operations, and/or use technologies that speed up the process and reduce labor, she says.
“Labor is going to be the main problem affecting how the industry continues to grow,” Scavuzzo says.
Some proposed legislation could make it even harder for farmers, says Guebert, including one proposal that would allow H-2A workers to file suit against a farmer two years after they left employment. This would increase farmers’ liability and stress, he says.
Another proposal would provide for employees to go back home between 30 and 45 days annually. For a dairy farmer with cows to milk, this time off could present challenges, Guebert says. The employers would be required to pay for the transportation home under this proposal. Guebert says he understands everybody needs to visit family, but such rules make it exceedingly difficult to find, maintain and fairly compensate employees.
Worker spotlight
Commodity groups continue to look for ways to support farmers in their labor challenges. For example, among the Illinois Pork Producers Association’s efforts is a membership discount for IPPA members with Swineworks, an international recruitment agency for the swine industry, says Mike Borgic, Illinois Pork Producers Association’s director of membership.
IPPA also offers employee betterment grants of $250 so farmers can treat staff to lunch or offer another show of appreciation, Borgic says.
IPPA also introduced the Swine Spotlight, which recognizes an employee of the month within the industry. It welcomes nominees not only among those working with the animals but also at the farm office, those scheduling seed deliveries, and truck drivers delivering pigs. Without any of them, the swine industry wouldn’t work smoothly, Borgic said.
Along with the monthly Swine Spotlight, one individual will be chosen as the employee of the year and honored at the Pork Expo on Jan. 30 next year, Borgic says.
“We want to recognize people in the industry and show appreciation to people behind the scenes,” he says.
The pork organization also develops manuals and guides for finishing and farrowing pigs in both English and Spanish to help people with international workers.
“IPPA tries to help our producers to recruit, to retain and to recognize good employees,” he says.
“It’s always been a challenge to find good labor in any industry and especially in the pork industry. The challenge has increased over the last several years.”
