Why Washington's farmworkers are disappearing

SKAGIT COUNTY, Washington — While there's plenty of work to be done in Washington's fields, orchards and berry rows, farmworkers are becoming increasingly rare in the Evergreen State.

From 2017 to 2022, total hired farm labor in the state dropped 23%, dipping at more than twice the national rate, with the greatest contraction recorded among U.S.-based migrant workers who for decades have followed the harvests up the West Coast, according to a Seattle Times analysis of recently released agricultural census data.

Defined as farmworkers who cannot travel home the same day, migrant farm labor in Washington saw a 37% decrease over five years, falling to about 35,000 workers in 2022. Nationally, their numbers dropped 14%.

In the same period, though, the number of farmworkers employed through the H-2A guest worker program, which allows employers to bring in foreign workers to fill temporary agricultural jobs, has nearly doubled in Washington, data from the state Employment Security Department shows. These contrasting trends imply that the drop has more to do with fewer U.S. workers moving across state and county lines to "follow the season" for work in Washington.

State labor economists and H-2A employment agencies alike attribute their ebb and the growing popularity of the H-2A program to domestic farmworkers aging out of the workforce and finding less strenuous jobs elsewhere, and a dwindling interest in farm work.

Farmworker unions and advocates, however, contend that the profits growers earn on the H-2A program are suppressing wages for domestic workers and pushing them out of work on Washington farms.

For 14 years, Tomás Ramón, 39, has been tilling farms in Western Washington. Through summer and fall, he harvests an assortment of Washington-grown berries. In the dead of winter he prunes their bushes, shrubs and trees. In spring, he trudges through mushy fields in the Skagit Valley, picking daffodils and tulips.

Together, Ramón and farmworker Octavia Santiágo, 31, earn $30,000 to $35,000 a year to support themselves and their three children, ages 12, 8 and 4. They dream big for their children's futures, envisioning them as lawyers and educators fighting for people's rights.

Ramón said working conditions on farms have improved with mandatory lunch breaks and overtime pay, thanks to a contract struck by their union, Familias Unidas Por La Justicia, in which he serves as vice president. However the income gains were short-lived as inflation skyrocketed and number of H-2A guest workers guest workers ballooned.

Employers are supposed to only import H-2A labor when domestic workers cannot be found, and are required to pay the guest workers competitive rates. But Ramón and others argue H-2A workers are now crowding out workers already in the U.S. while undercutting U.S. workers on pay.

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