Alexandra E. Hill of UC Berkely and James Sayre of UC Davis have found that the changing demographics of U.S. and Mexican farmworkers are linked with worker shortages. The H-2A visa program offers a solution but with steep costs. With revenues lagging behind rising labor costs, some farms have incentives to move production into Mexico.

Hill and Sayre delve into factors of farm employee demographics and their employment choices, finding among other things that workers have a strong preference to work in the United States under the H-2A program as opposed to paying exorbitant fees to human traffickers to cross the border illegally, partially because wages in the U.S. far outstrip wages available in Mexico. However, Hill and Sayre also find that high production costs, including the high cost of employing people in California, may be incentivizing agricultural producers to move production south of the border.

You can read more in the September/October 2024 Agricultural and Resource Economics ARE Update, published by the Giannini Foundation of Agricultural Economics at UC Davis, “As Mexican Farmworkers Flock North, Will U.S. Farms Head South?”