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H-2A program helps farms survive labor shortages, says third-generation grower

A third-generation blueberry grower says he transitioned to the H-2A guest worker visa program because his harvest crew requested it.

Southwest Michigan’s Lance Fritz tells Brownfield, “Our crews that we brought up every year, they came to us kind of complaining that they can’t get the people that we needed.”

“They decided they wanted to go H-2A, so we said, all right, well, we’ll go with you,” he shares.

Fritz says wages inconsistently increasing 4 to 8 percent every year would have priced them out of the program this year if the Department of Labor hadn’t made changes.

“With that kind of increase, probably, maybe (we’d) not been able to do it again,” he shares. “There’s not a lot left on the bone if you’re paying that high a price. We have to work within the margins.”

He says while the improvements help this year’s harvesting season, growers need more certainty from Congress to prevent program rules from shifting between administrations.

Brownfield interviewed Fritz as part of a recent farmer roundtable on his farm with the U.S. Secretary of Labor.