A farmworker picks strawberry during the harvest.

The agricultural sector has always had its own unique set of perennial labor-related challenges, made only worse by the pandemic.

Industry experts say a limited supply of workers, the nature of the work and a flawed immigration system — all exacerbated by COVID — make for a crisis.

Jeff Stone, executive director of Oregon Association of Nurseries, said he believes the No. 1 challenge is that there simply aren’t enough people willing to work in agriculture.

“There just aren’t the numbers to do the work,” he said.

It’s been decades since the industry could rely on a homegrown workforce, said Stone. Since the average American is not interested in farm work, for labor-intensive crop production and processing, employers must turn to migrants. But even there, older generations are aging out, while young migrants are seeking work in other sectors.

Farms compete to attract this limited supply of workers, driving up wages, industry leaders say.

And most workers don’t stay in one place. A few sectors within the industry, such as dairies, offer continuous employment. For the most part, however, ag labor jobs don’t provide year-round work.

Most commodities are seasonal, meaning an employer must build a new labor force year after year. Shay Myers, grower and CEO of Owyhee Produce in Nyssa, Ore., said from peak to low point, his operation sees about a 70% swing in laborers annually.

Pandemic during peak season

Many farmers, including Myers, rely on the federal H-2A guestworker temporary visa program that allows employers to hire temporary foreign workers. But the program, farmers say, has flaws: Demand exceeds supply; employers are required to provide housing, transportation and elevated wages, which gets expensive; and the paperwork, many say, is a burden.

Anne Marie Moss, spokeswoman for Oregon Farm Bureau, is advocating for Congress to create “a new flexible guest worker program.”

COVID-19 has further exacerbated the labor crisis.

Employers say they have struggled to afford new infrastructure, safety protocols and extra employee housing units to allow for social distancing. Without that extra housing, operations have had to reduce the workforce and volume of crops that can be harvested.

“When COVID hit, it cut in half or a third how many workers you could house in a unit,” said Stone, of the nursery association.

COVID outbreaks on farms — especially during peak season — have also disrupted harvests, with some employers leaving hundreds of tons of produce in fields or on trees because they didn’t have the hands to harvest it.

Why not just automate?

In the Midwest, harvesting row crops such as corn and soybeans is highly automated. That allows hundreds of acres to be harvested by two or three people. But in the West, where specialty crops dominate, most work must be done by hand — many hands.

“Oregon agriculture features many specialty crops, like tree fruits, hazelnuts, wine grapes, vegetables, and nursery products, all of which are very labor intensive,” said Moss, of the Oregon Farm Bureau.

In the nursery industry, for example, pruning must be done manually.

“There’s nothing like hand-pruning. There’s nothing like the human touch,” said Stone.

Watermelons are another good example. No machine exists yet that can tell when a watermelon is ripe and pick it without bruising the skin.

“(Watermelons) have to be handled like dinosaur eggs,” said Myers, of Owyhee Produce.

Myers said he wishes more Oregonians understood the labor challenges farmers face.

Shay Myers, grower and CEO of Owyhee Produce in Nyssa, Ore., said from peak to low point, his operation sees about a 70% swing in laborers annually.

“(Watermelons) have to be handled like dinosaur eggs.”

Shay Myers, grower and CEO of Owyhee Produce