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5 Things You Need To Know About The H-2 Programs

Thu, 06 Feb 2025 22:07:11 GMT

As labor shortages persist in the ag industry, many farms might be looking at using the H-2A and H-2B programs. Megan Wright, senior director of business expansion at másLabor, recently joined an Ag Retailers Association (ARA) webinar to explain the key aspects you need to understand to be successful.

1. Know the Specific Type of Labor You Need
While it might seem obvious farmers would need seasonal, agricultural labor, it’s important to think through exactly what tasks those employees will be completing. This determines if you need to hire H-2A or H-2B labor.

“The H-2A program is designed for all temporary or seasonal agricultural labor needs. On the flip side of that coin, we have the H-2B program — that’s also temporary and/or seasonal but for non-agricultural labor needs,” Wright explains. “Maybe some of the job duties that you have labor needs for take place on on the farm, but heavy tractor trailer drivers would be construction workers, or maybe you need to build a new farm building. What if you have manufacturing-style job duties?”

The H-2A program is uncapped because agriculture is considered a matter of national security, but the H-2B program does have a finite number of visas available each fiscal year.

2. Start the Process Early
Once you’ve decided whether you need H-2A or H-2B workers, the legal process can start. Wright recommends beginning these conversations 180 days before labor is needed for the H-2B program and 120 days for the H-2A program.

“There are an infinite number of H-2A visas, and the filing process itself is also just shorter,” she says. “The true nuts and bolts again of the process takes 75 days in a normal scenario, and I say normal because first-time program users can actually qualify for what’s called an emergency filing at no extra cost. That allows us to shrink that down and have workers arrive in as little as 45 days.”

3. Prepare for Housing and Transportation Requirements
The H-2A program does require employers to provide free housing.

“We always recommend to think of housing solutions as the the first thing you do when considering the H-2A program,” Wright says.

And though the H-2B program doesn’t require housing, it can still be an opportunity to ease the process.

“We still have folks coming into the country, potentially for the first time, who wouldn’t know the first place to look for housing. As an employer, if you wanted to take that extra step to provide a housing solution for the H-2B workers, you would then be allowed to deduct rent. So, we actually do find that a lot of our employers go ahead and do that knowing that they can recoup funds spent again through those payroll deductions.”

Travel expenses are another area some employers might be surprised by. That’s because it encompasses more than just the gas or plane fees.

“Both H-2A and H-2B employers are responsible for inbound and outbound travel, aka getting them from their front door to your front door and then back home again at the end of the contract period. I think what some folks tend to forget is that this isn’t just the literal transportation itself. It also includes a daily sustenance. It also includes potential motel stays,” Wright explains.

4. Be Willing to Hire Domestic Labor Also
If you want to hire international employees, you must be open to hiring domestic ones as well, according to the U.S. Department of Labor.

“The U.S. Department of Labor is in charge of the certifying process, and they’re clearly going to want to make sure that we’re not discriminating against U.S. workers by participating in these programs. You have to engage in positive U.S. recruitment,” Wright says. “As an employer, you need to be willing to hire a qualified, willing, available and able U.S. or domestic worker.”

The U.S. worker would need to have your minimum skill requirements and agree to the terms of the H-2 contract.

“If they come to you and they meet those requirements during this overall approval process, you absolutely have to interview them, and in that case, you would have to hire them on as well,” Wright says.

5. Stay Informed on President Donald Trump’s Immigration Reform Policies
Because H-2 workers have a lawful presence in the U.S., Trump’s deportation policies should not apply to them.

“It’s always important to note that Trump himself participates in both H-2 programs at Mar-a-Lago and at the Trump winery in Virginia,” Wright says. “But there might be misunderstandings, and there might be miscommunications. We might need to keep in mind that law enforcement may not be familiar with the H-2 programs overall.”

She recommends these best practices for avoiding any discrepancies with H-2 employees and law enforcement:

1. Your workers should have possession of copies of their legal documents, their passport, their visa, and are carrying those copies with them — especially if they leave the work site.
2. Make sure they have an emergency contact who can be reached at all times.
3. Create a document explaining the employee’s legal status in the U.S. and their rights (másLabor has these available).

'Stay Tuned, We'll Be Right Back With Your Forecast'

Sat, 01 Feb 2025 15:02:27 GMT

What if you could know the timing of significant weather events for your area during the next six months with 91% accuracy?

Now you can, according to Gary Lezak, a former meteorologist with KSHB-TV in Kansas City turned weather entrepreneur.

Lezak’s business, Weather 20/20, provides weather-based data analytics on a global basis to its customers, who range from farmers to retailers to general consumers.

Eighty Years In The Making
Lezak learned in the mid-1980s that a weather cycle exists, an insight he attributes to Jerome Namais, who first addressed the concept in the 1940s. Namais, a renowned American meteorologist, was Chief of the United States Weather Bureau’s Extended Forecast Section in Washington, D.C. from 1941 to 1971.

“What it’s all about is the weather pattern above us – the river of air that goes across North America through the westerly belt, across to Europe, Asia, and then back around across the Pacific. That jet stream flow, that river of air above us, has an order to it,” Lezak told Andrew McCrea, host of the Farming The Countryside podcast, during a recent conversation.

For the next 20 years Lezak continued to study the weather cycling concept, refining what he learned as he went along.

By the early 2000s, Lezak was blogging about what he had learned, eventually calling the concept he developed the Lezak Recurring Cycle (LRC). He founded Weather 20/20 in 2008.

“The LRC is all about the cycle,” Lezak says. “After many years of practicing it, 20 to 30 years of using it, we are able to predict when and where and a little bit of the what,” with regard to weather, he told McCrea.

The core tenet of the LRC is that a unique weather pattern establishes itself every year. It starts to set up in early October, with develpment continuing through early January. By then, Lezak says the pattern can be identified and predictions of every day’s weather around the world can be produced.

Based on the LRC, Lezak says he can predict with a 91% accuracy level when and where there will be major weather events – from snowstorms to hurricanes to droughts – for the next seven to eight months in the U.S.

“That (timing) is the sweet spot of the LRC and fits agriculture perfectly,” Lezak says.

He adds that Mother Nature still creates weather disruptions he can’t predict 9% of the time, based on influences such as El Nino, La Nina and the Arctic Oscillation.

Lezak’s take on the accuracy of weather forecasts differs from what the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) reports, though an apples-to-apples comparison is not available.

The NOAA says a seven-day forecast can accurately predict the weather about 80 percent of the time and a five-day forecast can accurately predict the weather approximately 90 percent of the time. However, a 10-day—or longer—forecast is only right about half the time.

Agriculture Takes Notice
As Lezak was honing the development of the LRC in the early 2000s, fellow meteorologist, Dean Wysocki, then based in Nebraska, learned of it and reached out to Lezak for more details.

Wysocki started using the information he learned during his broadcasts, noting that Nebraska farmers were hungry for more accurate weather insights and predictions.

“I’ll tell you what, it’s a game changer. That’s the easiest way to put it,” says Wysocki, who joined Lezak on the podcast.

Wysocki, now based in Fargo, N.D., got LRC certified and began telling farmers in the Dakotas and Minnesota about its benefits.

“It’s a major piece of long-term weather forecasting, and the accuracy on it has just been amazing,” Wysocki says. “We’ve signed up between about 50 to 100 in our ag community and we’ve got nothing but positive feedback. Is it 100% correct? No, nothing is, but it’s a great tool to have on your tool belt.”

The Weather Outlook Ahead
During the conversation with McCrea, Lezak and Wysocki shared some of their weather predictions for late winter and early spring 2025, based on information the LRC has provided. Here are three of their predictions:

1. Lezak says a La Nina, which is the cooling of the tropical Pacific Ocean, has a grip currently on parts of the western and upper Corn Belt areas, but he expects that to ease up.

“That grip that it has tends to shift precipitation patterns to the eastern Corn Belt. That’s not good for Nebraska, Kansas, Iowa, Minnesota, North Dakota and South Dakota,” Lezak says. “It shifts precipitation patterns to the East, but that grip we think is going to be let loose by March.”

2. Wysocki says he foresees a wetter spring, in March and April, for most of the Dakotas.

“We’ll get our moisture that we need in March and more than likely into the first part of April, and that should be good for planting season,” he says. “I’m still concerned about the western Dakotas into areas of Montana and Wyoming, worried that they’ll remain dry.”

3. With regard to drought, Lezak encourages farmers to keep an eye on the weekly U.S. Drought Monitor, as he says droughts are constantly either shrinking or expanding.

“It appears that over the last year or so that areas of drought, as we look at the entire nation, have begun to decrease,” he says. “This one has been shrinking for weeks, and that is a good sign. The likelihood of that trend continuing is high.”

Wysocki and Lezak offered additional weather insights during their conversation with McCrea. You can hear more of those specifics on the podcast, available here:

Your next read: With More Arctic Air Set to Blast the U.S., Why This Winter Could Be Remembered for Its Extremes

Robot Bees? Check Out This New Pollination Innovation

Mon, 27 Jan 2025 19:25:56 GMT

Scientists from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have developed advanced robotic insects that could aid farming through artificial pollination. They could prove especially useful in the controlled indoor environments of high-tech ‘vertical farms’.

“These type of robots will open up a very new type of use case,” co-lead author Suhan Kim, from the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS), told Reuters.

“For instance, we can think of artificial pollination. So since our robot looks like an insect, and it’s real lightweight and small, if you can really precisely control the robot we might be able to do something on top of flowers or leaves, which really requires very delicate interactions.”

The robots, each lighter than a paperclip, can hover for approximately 1,000 seconds, over 100 times longer than previous models. They are also capable of performing high-speed acrobatic maneuvers, including double aerial flips.

The new design halves the size of the team’s earlier model, with increased stability while also freeing up space for electronics.

“We want the robot to be able to have a [circuit] board, battery and the sensors on board. So to do that, we need much higher payload than now. So what we’re currently pushing very hard right now is to optimize the robot design to be able to lift more and more so that we can afford these potential payloads,” said Kim.

Long term, the team hope this will enable autonomous flight outside the lab. This technology could significantly boost crop yields in multi-level warehouses by providing a more efficient method for artificial pollination.

Vertical farming, the name given to the production of crops in a series of stacked levels, often in a controlled environment, is a fast-growing industry with billions of dollars being pumped into projects across the globe.

It is seen as part of the solution to the food security challenge posed by population expansion at a time when climate change and geopolitics threaten supply.

“This doesn’t really mean that we want to entirely replace honeybees in nature, but what we sometimes hear from the people in the relevant field is that there are really good cases where we can’t rely on honeybees anymore, such as like indoor farming, where we can’t really have honeybee homes in it because of safety issues or some environmental issues. So in that case, we can start thinking of using our robot, if it works well, for tools like indoor farming,” added Kim.

Despite the team’s improvements, the robotic insects still cannot match the capabilities of natural pollinators. However, the researchers aim to improve the robots’ flight time and precision to enable them to land and take off from the center of a flower.

The research was published in the journal Science Robotics.