Reporter Helps Public Understand the Farm Labor Shortage
March 27, 2019 
An ad seeking American farm workers ran in a Cape May County, NJ, newspaper. It caught the eye of Vince Conti, one of the paper’s reporters. Why? In part, the farm seeking labor is 500 miles to the north, outside of Buffalo, NY.
The ad spurred the reporter, who writes for the Cape May County Herald, to dig what spurred the ad. The resulting article is refreshing, revealing to consumers what the agriculture industry knows well.
First, he comments on how generous the job terms are — covering transportation, housing, plus a salary. Any grower will recognize these offers as H-2A requirements.
During his investigation, he discovered how illogical H-2A rules can be:
“Ironically there are farms in New Jersey that try to use the existing cumbersome H-2A program which may require them to advertise for workers in New York, as New York farms like Triple G advertise in New Jersey.”
Conti also brings attention to how universal the problem is:
“An ad in one New Jersey county seeking temporary workers for a farm 500 miles away sheds light on a problem shared by dairy farmers in Wisconsin, citrus growers in Florida, grape farms in California, chili pepper growers in New Mexico and potato and onion farms in New York.”
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