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Survey finds 25% of California farmers reported negative impacts from enforcement crackdowns.Farmers growing labor‑intensive crops reported negative outcomes at a higher 33% rate.Nearly half of farms adopted strategies like H‑2A, contractors, mechanization or shutdowns.
About one in seven California farmers surveyed reported labor losses linked to federal immigration enforcement activity, or worker anxiety fueled by fear of enforcement raids.
The impacts were higher among labor-intensive crop farmers, where roughly one in five California farmers experienced labor losses.
The survey conducted by Michigan State researchers in 2025 late last year and early this year is one of the first snapshots of how the Trump Administration’s relentless push to deport an estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants has impacted California agriculture.
Labor experts generally agree that California’s status as the nation’s top producer of fresh fruit, vegetables and nuts is supported by the labor of a largely undocumented workforce – about 40% by some estimates.
California farmers whose agricultural value topped $61.2 billion in 2024 feared the worst if immigration agents raided their packing houses, grape vineyards and orange groves.
The largest enforcement sweeps were felt in Ventura and Santa Barbara counties and surrounding communities where dozens were arrested.
Tracking the impact of enforcement actions was one of the reasons for the survey, said Zach Rutledge, a Michigan State assistant professor in the Department of Agricultural, Food, and Resource Economics.
“A lot of people are really interested in whether agriculture has been directly affected by this,” Rutledge said. “And to what degree.”
Of the 512 farmers surveyed by Michigan State researchers, in cooperation with the California Farm Bureau, fewer than 1% reported losing workers as a result of direct visits by immigration enforcement agents.
The “chilling effect” said Rutledge had a substantially greater impact.
“So it seems like, based on the results of the survey that most of the effects were just based on general fear about immigration enforcement, rather than a result of actual direct immigration enforcement activities,” Rutledge said.
Nearly half of farmers, 49%, used at least one of a variety of strategies to deal with the disruptions and loss of labor, including hiring farm labor contractors, offering new incentives to retain workers, completing the same workload with fewer employees, participation in the H-2A visa program, temporarily shutting down, or increasing the use of machines.
At least 7% of the farmers expressed concern about potential crew losses, disruptions to daily operations, worker safety, and reduced productivity due to increased anxiety or fear, even when no labor loss had occurred, according to the survey.
Bryan Little, chief operating officer of Farm Employers Labor Service, an affiliated company of the California Farm Bureau, said one strategy farmers may deploy more of is the temporary guest worker program known as H2A.
Seven percent of the respondents turned to the program that allows U.S. employers to hire foreign nationals to fill seasonal or temporary agricultural jobs.
While farmers have criticized the program in the past as being costly and cumbersome, Little said the federal government has made changes to program, including cutting the hourly wage.
“I think you might be seeing a lot more interest in the H2A program than you have before because of what the Trump administration did back in November,” Little said. “I’m hearing from lawyers who do H2A program work for growers and they are seeing a lot more applications.”
Little is hopeful the message from California’s agriculture industry that a wholesale crackdown on undocumented workers undercuts the state’s ability to produce more than one-third of the country’s vegetables and three-quarters of its fruits and nuts.
“I’m not in Washington, but I know people that I work with who are, and I know that every chance they had, they made a point of pointing out that you really shouldn’t conflate gangbangers and drug dealers with farmworkers and tractor drivers,” Little said. “Our messaging at California Farm Bureau has been that we can’t produce America’s food without these workers, so doing things that would make them unavailable to produce food would be counterproductive.”
This story was originally published February 28, 2026 at 11:46 AM.
The Fresno Bee
A Valley native, Robert has worked at The Fresno Bee since 1994, covering various topics including education, business, courts and agriculture.