CHOICES
A publication of AAEA
Tighter agricultural labor markets have been a challenge for many American farmers (Gutiérrez-Li, 2024, 2025). Labor shortages impacting the specialty crop sector (fruits and vegetables) have been well documented and discussed in academic, industry, and popular media circles. The emphasis on these industries is understandable. Estimates from the USDA Economic Research Service (USDA-ERS) indicate that while average labor costs across a broad spectrum of agricultural commodities hover around 10%, the figure can be as high as 35% for fruit and nursery farmers who are increasingly relying on foreign temporary workers coming under H-2A visas. However, less attention has been paid to the labor demands of other producers, such as farmers in the animal sector who, despite relatively less need for large numbers of workers, still require dependable labor to operate and grow. This article provides a unique perspective on the labor needs of livestock farms that complements the crop sector’s labor needs and utilization discussion.
We rely on newly collected data obtained directly from livestock producers across multiple states. A large-scale survey conducted last year through the Survey Research Center (SRC) at the University of Wisconsin-River Falls was implemented through mail, email, and farm visits to cattle and dairy producers in Wisconsin, Georgia, and North Carolina. The SRC mailed the survey to 1,880 randomly selected farmers (primarily identified from cattle and dairy association member directories in the three states) and received 535 completed surveys, for a response rate of approximately 29%. The online version of the questionnaire was shared by dairy and cattle farmer associations in Georgia and North Carolina through email, yielding additional responses.
The compiled survey dataset shows that there are important structural differences between the employment profiles of different farm operations. Although we cannot directly claim that our survey’s respondents are representative of each state’s dairy and cattle farms’ typical operating conditions and hiring practices, our results conform to the overall trends established in the occupational employment and wage statistics periodically compiled by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. As of May 2024, livestock workers (classified as farmworkers, farm, ranch, and aquacultural animals) only account for 0.084, 0.180, and 0.365 of every 1,000 jobs created in Georgia, North Carolina, and Wisconsin, respectively. In contrast, workers in crop, nursery, and greenhouse operations register higher shares of 0.503, 0.680, and 0.454 workers per 1,000 jobs, respectively.
The labor distribution summary in Table 1 confirms that livestock farm operations are generally less labor intensive, as more than half of the respondents (57.14% and 61.41%) have no more than two full-time and part-time employees, respectively. Notably, more than 30% of respondents reported not hiring any full-time or part-time employees.
Table 2 presents a breakdown of the farms’ labor complement by worker origins (permanent residence). Among respondent farms that supplied the requested information, two-thirds rely on domestic residents for their labor requirements. Based on the employment size distribution in Table 2, among farms that rely heavily on domestic labor, 40% employ at most two workers, with another 39% hiring 3–6 workers. Among farms with foreign workers, the comparable hiring rates are 23% and 45%, respectively.These trends thus suggest that, unlike specialty crop growers with larger labor requirements (especially seasonal workers), livestock operations demand fewer workers in general. However, when dairy and cattle farmers need to employ foreign workers, they regard the H-2A option as a standby labor sourcing alternative and thus would welcome modifications to the H-2A program’s existing policy and implementation guidelines that would grant them greater access to this reliable source of workers if needed.
The relevance of our findings cannot be understated; they come at a time when issues surrounding the employment of immigrant workers are at the center of national debates. First, there is the potential for mass deportations as a top policy priority of the current administration (Gutiérrez-Li, 2025). If many (undocumented) workers leave the agricultural labor force, pressure could build up and affect livestock farmers as specialty crop producers and real estate developers start competing for a scarcer labor force. Second, legislative efforts that propose amendments to existing H-2A-related provisions could be introduced. Although several efforts have been made to modify the H-2A program, little is known about the relative importance that farmers place on them. Earlier H-2A-centered legislative efforts, such as the Farm Workforce Modernization Act, failed to gain the Senate’s approval due to opposition to some provisions in the bill. Our survey compiles farmers’ perspectives on H-2A-related legislative proposals. Specifically, farmers shared their opinions on their rankings and prioritization of different bill provisions. Such perspective could help guide policy makers as they reformulate and consider possible modifications to their proposals that could resurface in future legislative discussions.
Livestock producers do not generally employ large numbers of H-2A workers, unlike specialty crop farmers. Those who do tend to mostly hire them directly (Table 3), as only a few rely on external services like those of independent contractors, employer associations, or the USDA. This pattern is not surprising, by virtue of the rules associated with the H-2A program. Under the government regulations, agricultural employers can only hire H-2A workers for performing seasonal tasks. This provision does not significantly affect fruit and vegetable growers, as they need most of their labor during harvest season. However, livestock production takes place every single day, leaving animal sector farmers out of H-2A labor for the most important production tasks. Nevertheless, farmers can still hire H-2A workers for seasonal work, and some do, as confirmed by 40 of our respondents, whose answers are summarized in Table 3.
The few livestock farmers employing H-2A workers generally feel that the cost of accessing this kind of labor is substantial. Table 4 presents the H-2A cost perceptions shared by 34 of our 40 respondent farmers from Table 3. Almost two-thirds indicated that H-2A costs were either moderately (26.47%) or very burdensome (38.24%), while only 17.65% said they did not find them burdensome at all (Table 4). This pattern aligns with the perception of farmers in most industries; that is, while the H-2A program effectively gives them access to a reliable workforce, the costs are high and growing, making the program prohibitive to most small and medium-size producers.
Our survey asked respondents to select which of the current H-2A provisions they would like legislators to modify. Among the program’s existing guidelines, the top provision that farmers would like to be prioritized in legislative amendments is for the government to set up subsidies to partially help farm employers in financing building and maintaining workers' living facilities (Table 5). Under current H-2A rules, employers must provide workers with transportation to and from their countries of origin to the United States as well as inside the country to and from the worksite and the living units. Moreover, employers must furnish workers with housing and afford all the costs associated with this mandate (Gutiérrez-Li, 2024).
Consistent with the H-2A program’s current incompatibility with the nature of the labor demand of livestock operations, our survey respondents’ choice for the second most urgent program modification was to create a yearly quota of H-2A workers just for nonseasonal sectors like dairy. Notably, this need was considered and addressed in the more recent versions of the Farm Workforce Modernization Act, which, despite gaining support in the House of Representatives, eventually failed to clear the Senate (U.S. Congress, 2021).
Contrary to expectations, only 6.5% of respondents prioritized the need to alter the determination process for H-2A workers' wages. This indicates that when laborcost considerations are weighed by farmers, more employers consider housing costs to be the more burdensome component of the H-2A remuneration package compared to the actual H-2A wage bill governed by the adverse effect wage rate (AEWR) provision.
Interestingly, the least selected change was to legalize the current undocumented farm labor force. Previous research has found that when foreign workers (immigrants) successfully gain immigration status that provides them with flexibility to work anywhere in the country, they are more likely to choose other jobs outside the farm sector with more competitive salaries and wages, better working conditions, and fringe benefits (Escalante, Wu, and Li, 2016; Luo and Escalante, 2017; Escalante et al., 2019; Williams and Escalante, 2019).
Table 5A breaks down the proposed legislation change preferences by whether the firms hire foreign workers or only domestic workers. Among employers who hire only U.S.-born (domestic) workers, the most popular hypothetical change was the creation of a yearly visa quota for nonseasonal sectors such as dairy, supported by 34.7% of respondents. This preference likely reflects structural labor shortages in year-round operations that cannot rely on seasonal H-2A hires. In contrast, among employers who currently hire foreign workers, a significantly larger share (56.3%) prioritized government support for building and maintaining workers’ living facilities. This suggests that for employers engaged withthe H-2A program, housing provision poses a more immediate and tangible cost challenge than the regulatory wage structure or labor availability itself.
Interestingly, the proposal to legalize undocumented farmworkers was supported by nearly 9% of domestic-only employers, but none of the employers currently using foreign labor selected this option. This divergence may reflect differing exposure to or reliance on the undocumented labor force as well as concerns among H-2A users that legalization might reduce the supply of farm labor, as explained above.
While livestock farmers are hiring relatively fewer H-2A workers, labor remains an important production input in their operations. Around 14.2% of the respondents indicated hiring documented workers (citizens or legal immigrants), and almost 12.8% reported employing undocumented individuals (Table 6). Most respondents, however, do not employ foreign workers of any kind. We find that 19.3% of firms hire foreign workers, who may be either documented or undocumented. Among these firms, not all hire both types of foreign workers. Specifically, 11.6% of them employ either documented or undocumented workers exclusively, while 7.7% hire both documented and undocumented workers, as illustrated in Figure 1.
This trend indicates either the adequacy of family labor inputs among small businesses or the less labor-intensive nature of production operations that can be sufficiently manned by available American-born workers on their farms.
In addition to asking about their current situation (at the time of the survey), we asked farmers about their plans to hire foreign workers in the future. Most respondents (58.62%) plan to maintain the same number of workers and domestic-foreign manpower complement (Table 7). This may suggest that the respondent farms intend to keep their operations at status quo levels and are not contemplating future business expansions in the short term. Alternatively, they may already have enough American-born workers on their payroll or might be considering on the possibility of investing in labor-saving technologies. It is also worth noting that close to 28% of producers indicated their indecision about hiring more foreign workers in the future, which could be a sign of some pervading concerns about uncertainty of business growth due to volatile economic episodes or a lack of confidence in their ability to pursue growth plans in the future.
Wages are generally a major expense for most business owners. We asked respondents to provide the average wage paid to three types of workers (Table 8). Of those hiring U.S. workers, more than 50% pay more than $13 dollars an hour, with more than 11% indicating paying more than $19 an hour. In the case of TN visa workers,[1] while some livestock producers hire this kind of foreign labor, most respondents (about 88%) do not. The same holds for H-2A workers, who are not usually relied much on in livestock farms as domestic workers. The H-2A workers actually hired by these farms are generally paid according to rates mandated under the program (i.e., at the AEWR levels set by the government at the state level, which vary based on the tasks performed by individuals).
Labor costs represent less than 5% of total costs for a little bit less than half of the sample (46.86%) (Table 9). This suggests that livestock producers incur other expenses (such as expenditures on machinery, feed, pesticides, and the animal themselves) that exceed their wage bill. Only 4.26% of respondents indicated that labor costs account for 26% or more of their total costs, which reflects the industry’s peculiar operating structure, which is less labor dependent than other agricultural sectors.
In terms of labor costs, specifically hourly wages, farmers’ responses are mixed regarding their perceptions of wage trends in the past two years (Table 10). While 41.39% of respondents asserted that wages have increased in this period, an almost similar proportion indicated no change (40.52%). Meanwhile,less than 1% have seen a decline in wages in the recent past. Such discrepancies in wage trend perceptions may be attributed to the different labor needs across operations based on their size. Alternatively, labor availability varies across regions, which could result in some areas having to pay less for workers while others might be compelled to compete for labor in areas that offer more lucrative alternative employment alternatives in nonfarm industries (like construction) or competing farm operations (such as specialty crop farms), thus forcing employers to make higher wage offers as they compete to recruit and retain workers.
A survey of cattle and dairy farmers in Georgia, North Carolina, and Wisconsin indicates that, while the rest of the agricultural sector is heavily dependent on foreign workers, livestock farms’ smaller farm labor complements allow them more flexibility in maintaining hybrid combinations of domestic and foreign workers, without necessarily depending heavily on the latter. Unlike most labor-intensive agricultural industries, livestock production’s relatively lower labor requirements could apparently be adequately met by available family and domestic workers. This labor utilization and demand trend coincides with more recent technological adoption decisions made by livestock farmers that started automating their production processes. Some dairy farmers, for example, are either already using or planning to invest in automatic milking systems (Gutiérrez-Li et al., 2025), which demand few workers and operate via robots.
However, our results also show that livestock producers do not altogether write off the foreign labor hiring alternative. Some farmers shared their recommendations for certain changes in the regulations and implementation guidelines governing the H-2A program that would (1) allow them to use H-2A labor inputs, despite the program’s current inability to accommodate nonseasonal, longer-term labor contracts and (2) lower the costs associated with housing the workers in the United States. If such modifications were to be realized, the relative costs of hiring domestic versus foreign workers would likely change, which could lead to an increase in demand for H-2A workers given the role played by relative wages in impacting demand (Escalante, Gutiérrez-Li, and Bhuiyan, 2025). Furthermore, shifts toward more automated livestock production processes could lead to an increase in labor demand, as workers and capital serve as complements (Holtkamp and Orazem, 2025).
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Gutiérrez-Li, A. 2024. “Feeding America: How Immigrants Sustain US Agriculture.” Baker Institute for Public Policy at Rice University. Center for the U.S. and Mexico.
———. 2025. “The Unseen Workforce: How Immigration Enforcement Could Shake the U.S. Economy.” Choices 40(3).
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Payan, T., and J. Rodriguez-Sanchez. 2023. “Revamping the TN Visa to Get Workers Where the US Needs Them.” Baker Institute for Public Policy at Rice University. Center for the U.S. and Mexico.
U.S. Congress. 2021. Farm Workforce Modernization Act of 2021. H.R. 1603. 117th Congress. Available online: https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/house-bill/1603 [Accessed April 2025]
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