A Central Florida strawberry farmer prepares soil for spring planting while confronting an acute labor shortage. He has farmed since the 1980s but reports that recent immigration enforcement, including detentions and deportations, has crippled operations. Many migrant workers have left or are hiding; the governor has deployed highway patrol and local police in enforcement. Normally half the crew lacks legal status and the rest arrive on H2A visas, but the farmer refuses to hire undocumented pickers and cannot afford additional H2A labor because costs have risen. He plans to cut production to 35 percent next year. Agricultural employment recently fell by 155,000 jobs.
The man looks out at the empty field, squinting: It's midday and the Central Florida sun is intense. To the untrained eye, this looks like a large dry plot of land. But it's one of the most important stages of strawberry farming: preparing the soil for planting so that by next spring, this field is bursting with juicy berries. He's been farming this land since the 1980s, but "things changed, almost overnight," he laments.
F. is an immigrant himself, and asked to be referred to only by his first initial because he's afraid of retaliation for criticizing the administration's crackdowns, which are happening all over the state: Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is actively deploying the highway patrol and local police in the effort. "You just never know where agents are," F. says, lowering his voice, even though no one is around.
In a typical year, about half his workforce is without legal status. The other half usually come through an agricultural visa called the H2A. But this year, F. is taking no risks: He's not hiring any strawberry pickers who are in the U.S. illegally. But he says he can't afford to hire more H2A visa workers the costs have been going up for years.
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