—story by Matt Milkovich
—photo by TJ Mullinax
Michigan’s fruit and vegetable industries can’t sustain H-2A wage increases for much longer, so they banded together to get the word out and convince their lawmakers to do something about it. The effort, called Protect Our Produce, launched in September with the backing of nine Michigan agricultural organizations.
The H-2A program’s Adverse Effect Wage Rate (AEWR) for Michigan rose from $13.54 in 2019 to $18.50 in 2024. Meanwhile, the state’s minimum wage was $10.33 in 2024. Because so many fruit and vegetable growers rely on H-2A workers to meet their labor needs, and so many are struggling to make a profit from the sale of their crops right now, the federal guest-worker program’s steep annual wage increases are putting them in an existential bind.
“The system is broken,” said Jamie Clover Adams, executive director of the Michigan Asparagus Advisory Board and organizer of Protect Our Produce. “It won’t be much longer before we see farms closing. We’ve got to do something.”
The campaign’s short-term goal is to raise the issue’s profile with the media and use that attention to get Congress to pause AEWR at its current level. In January, Michigan Rep. John Moolenaar introduced a bill in the House of Representatives to do just that. In late October, the bill, H.R. 7046, was still in the House Committee on the Judiciary.
Pausing further AEWR increases will give the produce industry “breathing space” to push for its long-term goal: reforming the H-2A program and changing the way AEWR is calculated, which will require congressional action, Clover Adams said.
“The situation is critical,” she said. “Policymakers need a sense of urgency. If they don’t act within the next year or so, Michigan will be a shell of what it was in the fruit and vegetable space.”
The Michigan State Horticultural Society is one of the groups backing Protect Our Produce. Executive secretary Ben Smith said he’s hopeful AEWR can be frozen, but the politics are complicated.
“This is not about immigration,” he said. “This is about protecting fruits and vegetables.”
It’s possible a bill could be pushed through in the lame-duck period after the November election, or early in 2025, he said.
“Any action taken before H-2A workers arrive next season would be fine, but the sooner the better for planning purposes,” Smith said. “Five or 10 years down the road, it won’t be possible to afford H-2A labor. It’s already almost unaffordable.”
Some of the participating groups are contributing money to the campaign, while others are providing in-kind services such as videography, Clover Adams said.
Michigan Farm Bureau, another participant, has provided videography services. An MFB videographer visited Wittenbach Orchards in Belding, Michigan, earlier this year, and asked growers Mike Wittenbach and Elizabeth Pauls to talk about the impact of H-2A cost increases on their operation. The videos are on the Protect Our Produce website.
Pauls, who has lobbied lawmakers in Washington, D.C., to reform H-2A in the past, got emotional in the video.
“It’s scary to feel like you have no control,” she told Good Fruit Grower. “We’re taking cost increases on all sides, and we’re running out of capacity to respond. The situation doesn’t feel sustainable.”
Clover Adams said fruit and vegetable growers aren’t replanting right now, which can be bad for their long-term economic prospects.
“Big stores want to work with growers with a big portfolio,” she said. “When you pull crops out, they don’t want to work with you anymore.”
Mark Miezio, president of Cherry Bay Orchards, one of the largest cherry growers in Michigan, said AEWR increases over the past five years have added $500,000 to the farm’s expenses.
“If that pace continues, we would not have a financial reason to exist,” Miezio said.
Cherry Bay has been hiring H-2A workers since 2013, and at this point “we don’t know what we’d do without them,” he said. He’s trying to cut costs where he can, but there’s only so much of that he can do.
“We do not pick up 20 percent efficiencies every year,” Miezio said. “But the cost goes up that fast.” •
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