However, the former USAID official and Martinez both said that if the funding to those ministries is gone, it could lead to fewer guestworkers coming in from those countries to work on American farms, more individuals attempting to enter the U.S. illegally to find work, and recruiters who use illegal and unsafe practices stepping in to fill the gap. As to improving safe, efficient recruitment from those countries, “What ends up happening is you pretty much cut everyone off at their knees and there’s no way to facilitate this work,” Martinez said.
Farmers in Limbo
Matthew Fitzgerald grows corn, soybeans, wheat, and beans on 3,000 acres in McLeod County, Minnesota. “My first choice is to have domestic folks, but unemployment is less than 4 percent in our county. There just aren’t people that want to do this work,” he said. He started hiring H-2A workers in 2021 and thought the FLSP program might help him use the guestworker program more effectively, to “be a better employer and then find better workers.”
Matthew Fitzgerald in a tractor in Minnesota. (Photo courtesy of Matthew Fitzgerald)
In response to the funding freeze, Fitzgerald compiled a list of the 60 farmers across the country who received FLSP grants in 2024 and sent out an email. On Wednesday, March 16, they gathered on a call to discuss their experiences and what could be done. More than half of the grantees participated, calling in from greenhouses, living rooms, and pickup trucks, he said.
“There’s folks that are really contemplating bankruptcy if they don’t get these funds. There are very serious situations,” he said. “Somebody messaged me and said they spent $400,000 on improving their housing for their workers and were expecting all the funds to go towards that.”
“There’s folks that are really contemplating bankruptcy if they don’t get these funds. There are very serious situations.”
Several other farmers in the program have already spent money, submitted for reimbursements, and are now waiting for payments ranging from $50,000 to $600,000. While Fitzgerald hasn’t requested a reimbursement yet, he said he planned his financial obligations for the upcoming season based on the expected cashflow. The way the program was designed, when farmers hit certain milestones, they’re eligible for payments. But he and several other farmers who spoke to Civil Eats said they’re not sure if they should invest time and resources into reaching those milestones if the payments might never arrive.
The biggest issue, he said, is what might happen if the USDA decides to cancel the program altogether. Enrolling in the program required the farmers to add the steps they were taking to improve labor practices on their farms into their legal contracts with the Department of Labor. So, for instance, if a farmer included housing upgrades, overtime, or paid sick days, it’s now in the contract, regardless of whether they receive the promised funding in the future. “Everyone who received this grant has made legal commitments to the Department of Labor, and so those are non-negotiable,” he said. “Those aren’t things we can cancel, so we’re going to be up a creek if they say, ‘Well, we’re not paying.’”
Broader Farm Labor Impacts
Eve Kaplan-Walbrecht has been growing vegetables, berries, and flowers on the east end of Long Island for almost 25 years. About five years ago, she began bringing in help from Mexico through the H-2A program. When she signed her FLSP contract last year, she committed to hiring two new guestworkers from Central America. During the process of recruiting workers from El Salvador, she worked directly with the labor ministry there, and officials assigned her a lead to help her through the process.
In February, when she reached out to check in on the status of her workers, the individual informed her in an email that the program that employed him was funded by USAID “and has been suspended until further notice.” Then he stopped replying.
“We’re basically under a contractual agreement to hire them through the ministry, but the ministry is not active, which basically leaves us just having no idea what we’re supposed to do, and our people are supposed to be here in two weeks,” she said in early March.
March 15, the day the workers were supposed to arrive, came and went. She has since been able to get in touch with the workers and believes they’re waiting for interview dates and approval. But everything is murky—and even if they arrive soon, the delay will impact the upcoming season.
