“I Can’t Find Workers” Farmers Are DROWNING After Trump Policies

Added: 2026-05-05

[00:00:00]It's just been harder and harder and harder to find those people to work.

[00:00:04]>> Bethany Gots owns Quay's Farm in Mountain Home. But now with fewer workers, a lot of the manual labor is left up to her. She tells me she's tried hiring locally, but it's been difficult to find people willing to do the hard work.

[00:00:18]>> Finding a legal American here that is going to work as hard as an immigrant is nearly impossible.

[00:00:26]>> She even posted job openings on Facebook. I had seven people contact me about it and when I sent them the description, I had no people respond.

[00:00:34]>> She says hiring undocumented workers is not an option with serious risks for both sides.

[00:00:40]>> One, you're going to get fined. You're going to you have a unfortunately an employee living in fear. They could get picked up at any any moment and then you're without an employee.

[00:00:50]>> To keep her farm running, Got is hiring high schoolers and is now looking into the federal H2A visa program. I have endeavored to spend $200,000 to build a small small worker housing so that I can get H2 workers next year.

[00:01:05]>> Got hopes for long-term solutions that support both farmers and workers.

[00:01:09]>> The misnomer that farmers exploit immigrants is just so sad to me because like I said, my friends and neighbors, we love our workers. They're our family and they want to work and they will work hard and there needs to be a path for these people in our country because our government has failed them and it is failing I feel the farmers.

[00:01:30]>> This is the current state of what a lot of farmers are going through across the entire United States. Now in this video right here I saw a lot of people in the comment section they were asking two questions. They asked one, who does she vote for? And two, they were asking how much are you trying to pay the workers to, you know, come out? Because basically what she's talking about in this video is she's not getting any American workers. She's not getting any people lining up, which is what a lot of people were saying, oh, hire American workers, right? And you know, yes, how much he pay? Now, if you talk about on average, your average farm worker right now, according to some research that I've been doing on the side right here, $17 an hour is what a lot of these farmers are paying their workers. Now, I've seen this get as low as $12 an hour in certain situations. Hence why they they try to, you know, bring in a lot of these people on visas, a lot of these immigrant workers, because you don't have a ton of people that are lined up to go and work these jobs. You just, that's the reality of it. I'm not trying to, you know, make it seem like, oh, this is the worst thing in the world or whatever the case is, but that's just what happens. And since the same thing that we saw as well in the construction industry as well that specifically over in North Carolina, we seen it most recently where they end up, you know, conducting a lot of operations and basically the people were left stranded.

[00:02:46]They had no workers to come out and finish some of these projects. But, you know, in her situation, she has no workers. So, how is she going to run her farm? And of course, yes, it does matter who she voted for, right? Because if you voted for this, then yeah, you supported a lot of the policies that going on and you didn't really, you know, understand.

[00:03:04]I'm not, you know, and I'm not trying to beat up on her, but truly what we saw this past year is a lot of farmers are struggling and I hate to see it. Like, let's call it what it is. I don't like to see farmers struggling, but a lot of farmers came out and supported this administration. They supported a lot of policies even though they understood that a lot of their workers were already immigrants or migrants and you know they came back and it backfired very heavily in a lot of these situations. But as we dive deeper into it, here's another perspective because farmers are going through a lot of things right now. And like I said once again, it is very unfortunate because farmers are the backbone of the country. We've said this millions of times. It's just like I can't wait till we get finally a solution for all of this and get beyond it because instead of targeting and I've said this multiple different times instead of going out and targeting the the workers and I get it whether they're undocumented or they are are documented whatever the case is why not make a process especially if they're making a benefit to the country make a process right don't go after the people who are you know out here actually working doing great things go after the criminals like they said right go after the criminals and and make it a a true system versus, oh, we know we got we can go out to a construction site and we can get a bunch of people. We know we can go out to the farms and we can get a lot of people. We know we can go in hospitality. We can go in landscaping. We go all these different places and bring people just to get a number versus actually doing the job of what it actually entails.

[00:04:34]That's what I'm saying. But here's another perspective on what farmers are truly going through in today's situation. I'm standing on a corn and soybean farm in whole Illinois. It's, as you can see, super rural. It's on the Missouri border in southwest Illinois, and it it's literally half a world away from the war in Iran. But amid its ripple effects, fourth generation farmer Rod Bushmeer and his family already fear ending their second year in a row in the red.

[00:05:03]>> Yeah, you can only do that so many years. Hopefully, it's cyclical. you know, we're in a down cycle and hopefully we'll head up.

[00:05:10]>> He says last year it was the tariffs that did them in and this year it's the still soaring costs of diesel fuel and fertilizer.

[00:05:19]>> At the mercy of everything, mercy of the weather, we're merc at the mercy of the markets, at the mercy of the government.

[00:05:25]Like I said, I'm not very political person, but um yeah, every everything affects our prices. It seems like in one way or another. Rod actually told me back in the 90s this land, his family's land, flooded and they didn't have crop insurance at the time. But he says they had enough wiggle room in their budget to make it through to survive. Cut to today, he says the costs to run his farm have just in the last year jumped 15 to 20%. And today he says that wiggle room in their budget is gone. So if that same scenario were to play out today, he says the entire farm, generations of farming, would go bankrupt.

[00:06:06]>> I mean, he said he's not super political. I mean, anytime somebody says that, that means they truly don't agree with the things that they're the person that they supported uh are basically saying or doing right now in their situation. Typically, I'm not saying that that's his case, but you know, we can make the assumption and I've seen people countless of times say, "Oh, not super political." But at the same time, they ended up, you know, they just don't like the things that are going on right now and they just regret their decision ultimately. But, you know, here's another perspective of what farmers are going through in other in other areas as well.

[00:06:39]>> I had to provide eviction notice to all of my farm workers this week. Not because of anything they did or I did, but because of outdated laws in the state of Florida. And the worst part about it has been that I can't get a single call back from any of my elected representatives. Not the governor's office, not my county commissioners, not my state representatives, not the health department, nobody. Radio silence. In Florida, farmers are perfectly legal to provide housing for their workers. It's well within their rights. The issue is the housing cannot be an RV. So these are not my RVs. They are RVs that are owned by the people living in them. So, it wouldn't be me providing substandard housing. These are RVs that they own.

[00:07:26]They choose to live in them. Several other states allow this. It's statetost state. Many states allow it. Florida does not. And to be clear, most of these RVs are nicer than my home. They're gorgeous and huge. Everybody knows this.

[00:07:39]Farmers cannot pay a lot. It there's not a lot of money here to pay. So if a farmer can offer a place to stay, a housing option on their land, it makes the affordable living much better for the workers. The problem is is this this isn't flashy. This piece of piece of legislation won't get whoever promotes it all over the news and that's all they care about. It's not saving 10,000 acres from development. So no one wants to take your phone call. You know, all it is is providing more housing options for farm workers and more perks that farm owners can offer to their employees.

[00:08:15]>> Yeah. And it's never gonna be fixed.

[00:08:16]Let's be real. I mean, honestly, and we've seen farmers take hits back to back in many different perspective.

[00:08:22]Here's another perspective as well. Now, she's over in Florida specifically. So, uh, of course, it's based on what the politicians in those area and the the city officials, the people who run that area, you know, decide on this ultimately. But, you know, it just sucks, man. It just sucks that they take blows back to back to back. I know a lot of people are finding out right there.

[00:08:41]They voted for a lot of this and all these different things, but ultimately, you know, I don't like to see them suffer, right? I don't like to see people I don't like to see anybody suffer. You know, when you look at, you know, the things that are going on right now across the board. So, when I see this continue to happen time after time to farmers, it just it it truly like it just sucks truly. But y'all let me know what y'all think about this within the comment section below.