(NewsNation) — Bush-N-Vine Farm in York, South Carolina, is best known for its strawberries, apples, peppers and pumpkins.
The Hall family has had ups and downs with farming for over a century, but soaring migrant labor costs and inflation are straining their business operation to the max.
“Everything has just really exploded in price,” Susan Hall said. “And you can’t pass it all on to your customer.”
Consumers get sticker shock at the grocery store. Since 2018, oranges are up 219%, milk is up 39% and tomatoes are up 20%.
But Susan’s son, Sam Hall, said he’s not concerned his family will have to quit.
“No, we’ll adapt,” he said. “We’ll keep farming, or we’ll die trying.”
The Halls are making payments on land, tractors and other machinery, and say they’re running out of places to cut financially. Farmers like the Halls want Americans to know they aren’t to blame.
Farming trials and tribulations
“Anything we’ve touched has gone up: Fuel, fertilizer, plant costs — you name it. But especially out labor costs,” Sam Hall said. “We’ve seen a 22% increase in the past two years.”
Labor is the Hall’s top expense, consuming half of the budget at thousands of dollars.
But other unexpected twists, Sam Hall said, are the legal fees costing his farm and his family more than $25,000 a year and stacks of paperwork to stay compliant with government regulations.
“There’s red tape all over the place over a farm. You would think I was out there on the tractor just plowing my field but that is not what I do at all anymore. It’s a whole lot of paperwork and managing different aspects of the business,” Sam Hall said.
He explained he’d rather be driving the tractor.
The Halls use the H-2A Temporary Agricultural Workers Program, a government program that allows American employers to hire migrants for temporary or seasonal agricultural jobs.
The downfall is that it’s expensive.
On top of the federally mandated minimum wage, which is $7.25 per hour, the Halls spend another $3,500 per worker on housing, travel and transportation. Plus, the mandated adverse effect wage rate under the workers’ program in South Carolina is $14.68 per hour.
With 30 workers on the farm this year alone, that’s more than $100,000 in additional costs. It costs the Halls more to hire migrant workers than Americans.
Americans refuse to harvest crops
Whether it’s picking peppers, peaches or pumpkins, farmers like the Halls say their harvests wouldn’t make ends meet without migrant workers.
But under inflation, the government-mandated wages are skyrocketing, and it’s strangling their bottom line.
The Halls said the problem is that Americans refuse to harvest crops.
“We have had nobody apply for the job, and if they did apply, they did not show up on the say or they didn’t last a day,” Sam Hall said.
He explained this has farmers feeling desperate and drives them to hire undocumented migrants.
Plus, the Halls hire migrants the legal way, putting another crater in their bottom line.
Family farms forgotten in Washington
Across the country, skyrocketing prices, wages and operating costs have shuttered hundreds of thousands of American farms.
In the past five years alone, over 140,000 American farms have tilled for the last time. Going back to 1950, 66% of all U.S. farms — 3.75 million farms in total — have stopped producing.
The number of acres farmed has dropped by 323 million, which is roughly double the size of Texas.
Agriculture experts worry as family farms across America gasp to stay afloat and go broke.
“We have been losing family farmers at an alarming rate for 50 years now, and every time we go through these cycles like we are currently in, we lose more,” Scott Blubaugh, the president of American Farmers & Ranchers/Oklahoma Farmers Union, said.
Agricultural economic expert Cesar Escalante said it’s the smaller farms that suffer because their backs are against the wall.
“They do not have the financial capabilities to mechanize,” he said.
He said that because family farmers make up such a small portion of the population, many feel forgotten by those in Washington, D.C.
Local farmers hope consumers pressure politicians to help solve the ongoing labor crisis.
“American public’s got to wake up and say we have got to have safe legal labor in the country. So we can eat local food and eat food that’s grown right here,” said Bob Hall, Sam Hall’s father and the owner of Bush-N-Vine Farm.
Bob Hall’s wife Susan said they are thankful for what they do have and their loyal customers.
“We love what we do,” Sam Hall said. “We’re really blessed to be able to build a farm in this great country.”
