On a clear spring day, half a dozen young men in hoodies, jeans and dusty workboots climb down from a small school bus and fan out in a field. They walk along the mounded rows, stopping to lean down at each lone stalk of asparagus, and, using a slender notched tool, they cut where the tall stalk meets the soil.
Asparagus is a symbol of spring, and for some, hope. The workers, from Guatemala and Mexico, laugh when asked if most Americans know how it grows and the labor it takes to harvest.
"When you eat the vegetable, you've got to think 'where [is] this coming from?'" said a worker, declining to be identified over fears of immigration enforcement. "Who's doing all the work?"
The question goes to the anxiety at the heart of farming today.
This spring is testing Massachusetts farms in several new ways, including a host of rising prices. But farmers say the most urgent challenge remains a worsening labor shortage.
Immigration enforcement hit a handful of farms last year, hobbling many, according to interviews with GBH News. But even limited actions by the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement have an outsized impact, sending ripples of fear through farmworker communities and reducing labor availability and mobility. Long-time immigrant farm workers are aging, and few Americans want to do the work.
These problems underscore the vulnerability of the state's small farms, where losing just one or two workers can derail a harvest. Interviews with more than a dozen farmers reveal anxiety so acute that nearly all declined to be identified, citing fear of being targeted by immigration authorities.
"We are short on labor for people with the necessary skills to do some of the jobs that are required in farming. This has been an issue for years, but it is more extreme now than before," one Massachusetts produce farmer said.
Experienced workers in short supply
Massachusetts' roughly 7,000 farms contribute $10 billion in annual economic activity to the state. While that's a small fraction of the overall economy, advocates say the state's farms support community health, the environment, and underpin local food security.
But the heightened worries about maintaining longtime crews mean growers who ramp up in spring say they are struggling to fill jobs — turning for the first time to an expensive and cumbersome visa program to bring in seasonal workers.
It's forced some to scale back — planting less and operating on a smaller scale than in prior years.
The American Farm Bureau Federation this year called the shortage of skilled, reliable workers the "single greatest threat to agriculture," warning it has worsened year after year. So even as farming accelerates, from asparagus harvests to early tomatoes, some are unsure whether they'll have enough labor to bring food to market.
Farmers scoff at the idea that labor is easily replaceable.
"I can teach somebody to put a roof on a house easier than I can teach them how to pick broccoli," said one Pioneer Valley farmer. "Losing very experienced workers or access to them is a real problem."
From dairy barns to vegetable fields, many Massachusetts farms rely on immigrant workers with varying legal status. Local farmers estimate the majority of farm workers are likely foreign born; national data shows about 70% are foreign-born.
"We could not produce food without them. The majority of many agricultural products produced in the United States are produced by immigrant labor, working together with the farm owners, which is what happens in my case," one dairy farmer said.
One Western Massachusetts farmer who has been farming for 35 years said planning has gotten more difficult. He's had to leave good crops in the field.
"We figured that we're going to have X amount of people, so we plant X amount," he said. "The question is, will we have the labor force to harvest them?"
'You don't know where they are'
Though immigration enforcement is not happening directly on farms, workers have been picked up outside their homes, while traveling to work, or while out shopping, according to interviews with local farmers.
Farmer Jane Pepin says that last year, she watched as workers in an SUV were stopped by ICE on the road near her farm in Easthampton. Three were arrested.
"They took some away in one vehicle," she said, "They had a woman… and she wouldn't go with them, so they were a little rough on her."
There's no official data on how many farm workers have been detained and few farmers will confirm incidents. The Department of Homeland Security did not respond to a request for detainment data.
Last year ICE broke down the door of a family of farmworkers in the Pioneer Valley. Several farms said they've consulted with lawyers to know how to handle an ICE raid, and posted "private property" signs to try to deter agents.
"Inevitably, many of these people end up having to take voluntary departure in lieu of deportation," said Matt Cameron, an immigration lawyer who has worked with detained farmworkers in New England.
Despite the fear, labor advocates say most farmworkers continue showing up because they can't afford not to.
GBH spoke to several farmworkers at their workplaces for this story. None wanted to be identified out of fear of drawing attention from ICE. One was a man from Guatemala who is now a U.S. citizen. He said he arrived when he was 16 and has worked in farming in Massachusetts for nearly 25 years. Despite his citizenship, he still worries his skin color leaves him vulnerable.
"I pray to God nothing happens, you know, because I love this country," he said.
As she trimmed and stacked asparagus, another worker who is from Mexico, and not a citizen, shared her anxiety about traveling to work.
"You don't know where they are," she said, referring to ICE. "They take whatever that's immigrant, that has a paper or not."
A farmer in Western Massachusetts said immigration fears have "tamped down the flow" of seasonal workers in the area.
"We typically would have about 15 seasonal immigrant workers here in our peak season. This past year, we were only able to fill about 10 of those slots," he said.
Turning to visas for help
To fill gaps, farmers are increasingly turning to the federal H-2A visa program, only available for seasonal work. Many say it is costly, bureaucratic and slow. Growers must provide transportation and housing, while applications must move through multiple federal agencies.
"No grower gets into the H-2A program because they want to. It's a difficult program to navigate with all the rules and regulations," said Joe Young, executive director of the New England Apple Council, which was formed in 1963 to help growers access labor. "People go to it because they want to stay in business."
Over the last decade, use of H-2A visas has surged 185% nationwide. This is largely due to the rising age of immigrant farmworkers who are not being replaced by younger workers. U.S. Department of Agriculture data shows the average age of the foreign-born workforce is now just over 42 years old.
"H-2A workers are typically decades younger than agricultural workers here in the United States," said agricultural economist Samantha Ayoub.
Young said rising demand is slowing approvals.
"Right now we're waiting on a group of 20 people to come. And we still don't know exactly which date they're going to come in,'' one farm manager said. "Our production fully relies on their arrival."
Farmers applying for those foreign workers must first post their job listings in the United States, but they say U.S.-born workers rarely apply.
In recent years some farmers relied on a visa meant for educational exchanges, and to train farmers from other countries, called a J-1.
But several J-1 visa program sponsors told GBH News there's been a large drop in applicants, higher rates of rejections and a significant slowdown in candidate interviews under the Trump Administration.
One small Massachusetts farmer said the visas had been a "game changer" to help find the handful of people needed. But this year, without explanation, her workers weren't approved by the federal government and said it's been "impossible" to find local help.
A produce and livestock farmer in Eastern Massachusetts said half of his J-1 applicants were rejected for reasons including being a "flight risk," or because of no family or property in the workers' home countries — reasons, he said, that didn't match the backgrounds of the applicants.
A State Department spokesperson defended the process.
"The Trump Administration is putting American interests first through the visa process," said the spokesperson in a response to a GBH News request, In every visa case, we will take the time necessary to ensure an applicant does not pose a risk to the safety and security of the United States and that he or she has credibly established his or her eligibility for the visa sought."
'365 days a year, 24 hours a day'
The state's remaining dairy farmers, who require year-round labor, have no visa program to help them get more workers. Some are run with only family help. Others say they've long relied on immigrant workers, and worry about keeping them.
"We take care of animals 365 days a year, 24 hours a day," one Massachusetts dairy farmer said. "We have no program to bring us immigrants because we do not have seasonal work."
He said when the weather warms, he'll typically get a call from one or two local people.
"There's a good chance the scenario they tell me is that their son spends too much time on his cell phone, and they really think he ought to come work on a farm," he said, adding they might last a day.
A young man from Mexico, who's been a dairy worker for five years, is one of the lynchpins in the dairy barn. He bottle-feeds calves, supervises robotic milking machinery and sweeps out the barn.
"Because people who work here are honest, peaceful, then they grab them, deport them. So that's very sad, you know?" the worker said, speaking in Spanish. "There are people who don't like the people who are Latino workers. So I think that at least they should try to work one day under the sun, or in the cold, with a minimum wage."
Another problem adding to the labor shortage — the children of immigrant laborers aspire to other jobs.
A 46-year old worker from Mexico who has been doing farm work for 20 years, said she has two children — both young adults — who see the hard work and prefer to stay in school.
"They're not really interested," she said.
'The system is horribly broken'
Farmers praise a recent Massachusetts bill that invests in local farms by improving access to local foods, fund infrastructure and preserve farmland. But when it comes to labor, many direct their anger at Congress, and share the feelings of one Pioneer Valley farmer who says: "The system is horribly broken and it needs to be corrected, and it's needed it for decades. Why can't Congress just get together and fix it?" he said.
Some farmers want the government to give residency to farm workers who have been in the United States for many years, and create year-round agricultural visas that can be renewed. A federal farm bill to address the labor shortage has floundered year after year.
Warren Shaw, a fourth-generation dairy farm owner and president of the advocacy group the Massachusetts Farm Bureau Association, was blunt about Congressional inaction on immigration reform. He emphasized this is his personal opinion.
"We just have two political parties that do their fundraising on that issue and they don't want to solve the problem," he said.
'Nobody wanted to take over his farm'
Massachusetts farms embody the state's history — described by one Western Massachusetts grower as a "time-honored New England tradition" of self-reliance. That idea has been gaining importance as New England states focus on greater resilience of the food supply.
But according to a recent state report, roughly two-thirds of the state's farmers operate at a loss.
Karina Laurenitis, owner of Starview Gardens in Sunderland and a vice-president of the Franklin County Farm Bureau, said while labor is the greatest expense, the rising price of other items — from fertilizer and equipment to plastic planters — add even more pressure to farms.
"Everything went up about 30% since last year," she said. "The cost of goods before it even hits the shelf is already like you're operating at a loss."
More than half of the state's farmers rely on outside income, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture data. Laurenitis, for example, has a full-time, off-the farm job which "covers all of the gaps."
"The farm often does not pay for itself," she said. "I cover taxes, I covered payroll in some of the harder months out of my own personal funds."
And the state's farm labor dilemma may wane in significance if more don't take over farms from aging farmers. According to state data, farmers now average nearly 59 years old.
Kenneth Pepin and his wife, both in their 70s, say they're farming less acreage as they head into retirement. He expects their farm will close, just like his neighbor's did when he got too old.
"Nobody wanted to take over his farm," he said.
Laurenitis, who took over from her father, shares the concern.
"I know plenty of older farmers who are trying to find an exit path that hopefully continues their farm and can't, because it's just kind of a grim landscape to talk someone into taking over," she said. "That's the unfortunate reality of it."
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