Hope on the Way for the Labor Market?

Labor. Every conversation about challenges facing greenhouse businesses gets to that topic sooner or later (generally sooner). For greenhouse growers, labor has become more than a seasonal headache. It is now a structural business challenge that affects production planning, crop timing, service levels, and profitability. A spring season shaped by uneven weather can be difficult enough, but growers increasingly say the larger question is whether they can assemble the workforce needed to produce a quality crop.

The federal H-2A temporary agricultural worker program has become the solution for many growers, and Justin Bartlett, co-CEO of Legacy Labor, is optimistic that momentum for significant improvements to the program finally exists in Washington, DC, although he cautions that meaningful change won’t come overnight.

“The recent proposal that was announced, I think that’s the direction that we need to head where the program is opened up to longer periods of employment for the industry,” says Bartlett, referring to the Securing Agriculture’s Workforce Act, introduced by U.S. House Agriculture Committee Chairman G.T. Thompson. “The proposal eliminates the seasonal work requirement and allows growers to essentially have H-2A workers year-round.”

“The bill would also stabilize the wages growers have to pay and bring those down, which would be good for the growers,” adds Bartlett.

Bartlett estimates that roughly half of the greenhouse businesses in the country use the H-2A program. “Many of the growers who were on the fence for the last decade or so are making the change to use H-2A, and the new wage reduction changes have really opened that door,” he points out.

Data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture Economic Research Service backs Bartlett up — the number of H-2A visas issued by the federal government essentially tripled from roughly 108,000 in 2015 to more than 325,000 in 2025. “Labor challenges aren’t going away for this industry, so use of the program will continue going up dramatically,” says Bartlett.

Bartlett acknowledges that the H-2A program doesn’t meet every grower’s needs, but he encourages growers to learn more to evaluate the program’s fit for their business. “Many growers don’t use H-2A because they don’t know what they don’t know and there’s a perception among many growers that the program is too complicated,” he observes. “They owe it to themselves to learn about every option out there to address the labor challenges because these problems are not going away and they limit the growers’ business potential.”

More broadly, Bartlett says the growing operations that manage labor most effectively are the ones truly focused on how they make their employees feel. “The companies getting the most out of their workforce are the ones that bring their employees into the fold, so to speak,” he notes, explaining that this is especially important with immigrant labor. “You have to make employees feel like they matter and that they’re not just some outside group. They have a life and a family. Get to know them and their stories.”