Farmers in the rural region near the New York border say those stories are not unique.
“The whole thing is screwed up,” said John Painter,
a three-time Trump voter who runs an organic dairy farm in Westfield. “We need people to do the jobs Americans are too spoiled to do.”
These are the voices Thompson and other farm-state lawmakers are hearing as they discuss potential solutions. Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins’
assurances that American workers and machines can help close the gap ring hollow among farmers who have become reliant on migrant labor that is increasingly hard to find in the face of Trump’s immigration crackdown.
The U.S. agricultural workforce fell by 155,000 — about 7 percent — between March and July, according to an analysis of Bureau of Labor Statistics data. That tracks with
Pew Research Center data that shows total immigrant labor fell by 750,000 from January through July. The labor shortage piles onto an ongoing economic crisis for farmers exacerbated by
dwindling export markets that could leave them with crop surpluses.
“People don’t understand that if we don’t get more labor, our cows don’t get milked and our crops don’t get picked,” said Tim Wood, a dairy farmer and a member of the Pennsylvania Farm Bureau board of directors.