Host Kristen Mosbrucker-Garza speaks with Dante Galeazzi, CEO of the Texas International Produce Association, about the intersection of immigration policy, labor shortages, and agriculture in Texas.
A new Dallas Fed report explores the economic impact of immigration changes — but left out agriculture and construction, two industries most dependent on immigrant labor. Kristen and Dante fill in that gap, exploring:
• Why Texas farmers rely heavily on H-2A guest worker programs
• The challenges small farmers face navigating visa systems
• How labor costs and water shortages are shifting produce production to Mexico
• The economic ripple effect of labor enforcement and policy uncertainty
• What a “functioning” federal guest worker program could look like
From citrus groves in the Rio Grande Valley to produce farms across Texas, this episode dives deep into what’s really at stake for America’s food supply if immigration and guest worker programs don’t keep up with reality.
Below is a rough, AI generated transcript of the interview. Note that this is an unedited transcript.
**************************************
Kristen:
Welcome back to the Rio Grande Valley Business Journal podcast. I’m Kristen Mosbrucker-Garza. a new report from the Dallas Fed is shining a light on how federal immigration policy changes are reshaping the workforce in Texas. But there’s one thing that report did not cover the construction and agriculture industries that rely most on immigrant labor. So today, we’re filling in that gap with an expert voice from the field.
We talk about what happens to Texas agriculture when guest worker program stall, when a functioning H-2a visa program could look like. And what’s really at stake for the Rio Grande Valley produce and citrus growers
And today we have Texas International Produce Association CEO Dante Galeazzi with more.
We had a report come out from the Dallas Fed. I don’t know if you got a chance to at least skim it, but basically, they’ve been looking at, tracking the implications of some changes in our immigration policy at the federal level with what that means for employers.
So, they do this Texas Business Survey. So they asked, you know, different sectors about the intersection of differing immigration policies and the available workforce. But interestingly, for whatever reason, and probably because it’s more difficult to do, you know, they didn’t include in their survey or their Rolodex folks in construction or in agriculture.
And so I kind of wanted to fill in that gap, to get a better sense how immigration policy plays into available labor. I know here in the Rio Grande Valley, we’re in harvest season. And we also used a lot of H-2A, I believe, workers to augment, you know, the harvesting of our crops.
And so for folks who aren’t very familiar, how significant is immigration policy to the availability of workforce for people in agriculture?
Dante:
Yeah. Well, let me throw some numbers, actually, too, I think beginning this conversation. USDA estimated that in 2023, we needed roughly 34,000 laborers for agricultural work in Texas — 34,000. If you look at our H-2A visa usage last year, we were at just over 12,000. So that delta, or the difference, is going to be made up by a combination of domestic workforce as well as, most likely, a percentage of undocumented workers.
So we very much depend on immigration because of those 34,000. I believe the national statistic is that something like less than 10% of the workforce is made up of domestic workers. So where do you get the other 90% then? It’s from foreign labor. Now, here I do want to make a clarity point.
The H-2A is a little different from the immigration conversation in that it is a guest worker program. So the thing about H-2A is that the program exists in a space in which we are registering with our government, we are working a lot with foreign governments. I mean, there’s a lot of visibility and a lot of moving pieces to it that are very different from immigration.
But immigration still plays a part in being able to foster, one, the efficiency and resources that are needed to bring these folks into the U.S., as well as the systems that are necessary so that way we can have a functioning H-2A system. For example, during the government shutdown, the Office of Foreign Labor Certification under DOL was also closed. So for a month they had not been processing applications for H-2A workers. Guess who — and you already alluded to it — needs H-2A workers this time of year? South Florida, south Arizona, and south Texas. So that is incredibly impactful when those types of things get caught up in the immigration conversation as well.
Kristen:
That’s really interesting. I was actually looking at some of the H-2A visa job postings and applications and they’re paying at least $15 an hour. I was kind of surprised at that. Is that average?
Dante:
So the H-2A actually starts at — or it used to start at — $18.85 an hour. The new wage-rate system is going to have it come down to, I think, $11.95. We just had a change in the system because the formula that DOL was using — it was an inappropriate formula for the system they were trying to generate.
But to your point, yes, these H-2A workers are very well paid. They were being paid $15.85 an hour. Plus, they are given three meals a day at the cost of the employer. They’re given housing for the entirety of their stay at the cost of the employer. They are provided travel into and out of the country at the cost of the employer. They’re also given transportation to and from the worksite and their housing, as well as every weekend the employer needs to take them basically into town, right, so that way they can do laundry, run errands, etc., and then bring them back — also at the cost of the employer. So you have $15.85 an hour plus all these other benefits. Once you add it all up, it’s the equivalent of something like five extra dollars an hour or six dollars an hour on top of what they’re being paid when you start factoring in those benefits.
Kristen:
Compared to some of the other wages that I see in this community, I was just surprised at how massive that was, kind of a difference. But in terms of how critical immigrant labor is to the produce industry in the Valley, as a piece of our economy — right? So, for example, I was talking with folks in the cotton industry and their agricultural sector — they actually said that they ended up mechanizing a lot of what they do. But I’ve been hearing from folks in produce, for example, that that has not been mechanized.
Dante:
No, you’re exactly right. We grow 60 different fruit and vegetable commodities in Texas. Only five of those are able to be harvested mechanically. So that means all the other acres must be harvested by human hand. And let me point out: the acreage that is mechanized is not the majority of the acreage.
Kristen:
As we transition from a lot of the fruits and vegetables grown on the U.S. side to increasingly on the Mexican side — is the industry shrinking or are they just shifting the type of crop to maybe higher-cash crops?
Dante:
You have a lot of different variables at play that are changing the production scope. So: labor cost and labor accessibility — right, because that’s really what we’re talking about here with immigration and labor — labor accessibility, labor costs, the cost of doing business, urbanization, water shortages, water scarcity, the cost of agrochemicals or ag inputs, as we will state. A lot of these variables are starting to outweigh the return that the growers are receiving.
And so, as production becomes unprofitable, they are having to change production to other commodities. And as a result, those commodities that still exist but maybe can’t be profitable here in the U.S., we often see companies push those down into Mexico or further into Latin America. And yes, we are seeing that happen here in Texas, right? We have pressure on the ag system here in Texas, and that pressure has made it very difficult for our farmers to grow and sell fresh produce in the U.S. at a consistent profit margin.
That is a recipe for disaster for an entire industry. And let me be clear again: that isn’t just labor. Labor and immigration is a piece of it. But this country has legislated agricultural production — especially fruits and vegetables — out of feasibility for most of the United States. And that is a travesty. And that is something that Congress needs to wake up to and really make a conscious decision if they want to be more supportive of American agriculture.
Kristen:
So there’s been a lot of targeting of people. You know, it seems like for folks who are in charge of policy, they’re very interested in allowing produce over the border, right? But they don’t want the people. And it just seems like, well, if that’s the workforce to pick the produce — even temporarily — I mean, I just kind of wonder, how is that going to function?
Dante:
If the United States doesn’t have a more conscious approach to labor mobility — not only in North America, but as a consideration for all of our needs in this country — we are going to continue to see production moved offshore. We have to have the labor force to support production, plain and simple. And if you don’t have that production, you’ve got to look outside of the U.S. for those commodities.
Texas has experienced a stress, right? We have long suffered to find enough folks to harvest the fields. For example, our folks in central Texas — Uvalde, Pearsall, all that area — they have been using H-2A for the better part of two decades. Many of them, because of the cost of H-2A and similar regulations, actually have to make decisions about what to plant and not plant and allow certain portions of their fields to go fallow or unplanted. They have the business — or they could have the business — but because of the cost of labor, because of other things, they’ve got to decide not to do that.
And so our labor needs have actually been slightly decreased compared to where we should be. And part of this is tied into water availability, especially down in the Rio Grande Valley. Last year, up to 70,000 acres of fruits and vegetables we normally grow — we could only plant about two-thirds of those acres because we didn’t have enough water. So we still need the laborers, but the demand wasn’t quite the same as previous years.
One other thing, too, is enforcement. So we heard about very heavy enforcement against agriculture in California and the West. Texas fruits and vegetables — we don’t have a lot of production, we have very minimal production, in fact, during the summer. So we didn’t really experience those same levels of enforcement targeted at agriculture. This summer, as we begin our harvest season down in the Rio Grande Valley, where about 70% of the state’s fruits and vegetables are grown, we’ll see what happens. Our hope is that the industry will be well prepared and we will not see disruptions, even if enforcement does end up being an issue down in the Rio Grande Valley.
Kristen:
So basically the Dallas Fed essentially said that because of a change in federal immigration policy, we’re simply going to have fewer immigrants working in this country. And as a result, our economy is essentially going to shrink, right? And I just kind of wonder, from the perspective of folks in agriculture, how much could that potential shrink look like? How much more could the industry shrink if there really is a lot of crackdown in terms of the workers?
Dante:
If enforcement is such that it really does prevent the necessary supply of workers to be available to agriculture, then the impact is going to be disastrous. Because, one, you’ll leave fruits and vegetables in the fields past maturity because you couldn’t get to them in time. That is a lost investment that the farmer cannot realize, right? It’s not like widgets — “Oh hey, I didn’t have a market for widgets, I’ll stash it in storage and then just eat the storage cost.” No. If your fruit and vegetable isn’t harvested when it needs to be harvested, it’s toast. It’s gone. It is lost money. And the farmer puts all of that investment up 6 to 8 months before realizing that product is even here — before realizing any of that product’s investment.
We have to have the people at the time the product is ready. We have to be ready to go with the harvesters, with the laborers. Otherwise, our industry comes to a screeching halt.
Kristen:
The Rio Grande Valley in particular is very much known for citrus. And for folks who aren’t very familiar, can citrus be picked mechanically? What does citrus workforce look like? And I know there’s been decreasing acreage because we have had a lot of suburban development. But I kind of wonder — is our citrus harvest at risk?
Dante:
All of our harvests are at risk. You have 20,000 acres of citrus down in the Rio Grande Valley. All of it is harvested by hand. It is a longer season — it begins October 1st and runs through, God willing and the weather cooperates, through April into the early days of May. And so, I mean, you need that personnel for that entire time period, right?
But also during that time you have all the leafy greens coming on, you have onions, carrots — you have all of these other fruits and vegetables that are being grown down in the Valley, something like 40 different commodities, right? Grapefruit and oranges are just two of those 40 commodities. And like I said, in the Rio Grande Valley we only grow really two items that are mechanically harvested right now — beets and carrots. So 38 other commodities have got to be harvested by hand. And let me tell you something: beet and carrot acreage isn’t all that much compared to all the other fruits and vegetables that have to be harvested by hand. So the Rio Grande Valley, without laborers, will suffer.
Kristen:
If you had a magic wand and you wanted to help improve our economy in terms of agriculture, in terms of labor policy, what do you think would really make a difference? What do you think would sort of bring back the tide, allow employers to connect and secure employees even on a temporary basis through a visa program or something similar? What does it really take? Should we go back to the federal program or some version of it?
Dante:
You know what — the Bracero program would be great, right? Because it was a pool of candidates ready to go for agriculture. And depending on which version of the national program you look at — I mean, the first program in 1913 was agriculture and railroads, right — and you had this pool of candidates with cards who could go to different employers. Maybe that’s it.
I think, though, Kristen, really what this government can do quickly and easily is: one, they’ve got to fix the H-2A program. It is a ball of wet spaghetti covered in Band-Aids. There has been so little conscious thought given to the program that there are so many opportunities for efficiency that could drive out this unnecessary cost.
Number two, they’ve got to make the program accessible for small farmers. Right now, medium and small farmers can’t access it because it’s so complicated — they end up tapping into third parties. That comes at a cost. That would be tremendously huge because our country needs somewhere between 1.5 and 2 million agricultural laborers every year, and the vast majority of those are going to be foreign workers.
So, focus on a good, functioning, efficient, inexpensive guest-labor program — that would 100% make a tremendous difference.
Number three, we need our government to invest more in the personnel that work with this program. DOL is so poorly equipped to be able to handle applications. The fact is: we file an application and sometimes our folks will go 40 days before they hear anything. It’s almost like this black hole of information, and nothing comes out of the black hole and shows a thumbs-up or thumbs-down. And then you have to spend your time trying to figure out why you got the thumbs-down. Were there online portals? If you all had enough people, you could actually process these applications. That would be another big one as well.
Kristen:
Do you get the sense from the federal government that there’s really any investment in H-2A or an alternative? There’s been so much rhetoric about what they don’t want, but I don’t hear as much about what they do want to build.
Dante:
You know, I have to say this: there are absolutely some congressional reps who give me the glimmer of hope. You’ve got — well, like our local one, Representative Monica De La Cruz — she introduced the 2.0 bill. It basically has a ton of H-2A fixes that would be fantastic. Vicente Gonzalez, just next door — Save America’s Workforce bill. You’ve got Dan Newhouse in Washington. You’ve got Escobar, Salazar — the Dignity Act. I do think there are glimmers of hope.
From the administration level, though — man, it’s tough to say. I sincerely hope so, because the administration indicated in early summer that there was a desire to do it. Enforcement is still ramped up at all-time highs, but we haven’t seen or heard anything. Right now it seems like the last four or five months have been dominated by the budget, and so it’s almost like immigration has gone to the wayside. So I sincerely hope that there is a glimmer of hope within the administration to once again turn their attention and give immigration — or H-2A, any of it, all of it — the focus that it deserves and very much needs.
Kristen:
I’ll let you go, but thank you so much for your time. I sincerely appreciate it. And I’ll definitely check out those bills — that’s really interesting.
Dante:
Thank you so much, Kristen. You take care, ma’am.
Kristen:
You too.
Dante:
Bye-bye.
*******************************
#TexasAgriculture #ImmigrationPolicy #H2Avisa #FarmLaborCrisis #RioGrandeValley #TexasEconomy #AgricultureNews #GuestWorkerProgram #USFarming #ProduceIndustry #LaborShortage #DallasFed #BusinessPodcast #TexasFarmers #FoodSupplyChain
