Mississippi's Agricultural Labor Force: Reliance on H-2A Workers
Mississippi’s agricultural industry has a long history of using legal temporary agricultural workers to meet seasonal labor demands, particularly in labor-intensive crops.
Sectors within Mississippi’s agricultural industry rely on significant numbers of workers hired through the H-2A Temporary Agricultural Worker Program, overseen by the U.S. Department of Labor.
Elizabeth Canales, an agricultural economist with the Mississippi State University Extension Service, noted this temporary agricultural visa program, allowing producers to hire guest workers, has been expanding in recent years.
“Nationally, it is estimated that about one in six hired ag workers are H-2A workers,” Canales stated. “In fiscal year 2025, there were 7,363 H-2A positions certified in Mississippi. Not all certified positions result in a visa being issued, but generally more than 80% do.”
Approximately 500 companies in Mississippi have filed paperwork to hire guest workers. These industries include vegetables, catfish, sod grass, row crops, and gin operations.
“The specialty crop sector, which includes vegetables, fruit and tree nuts, makes up the largest employer of foreign workers in the state,” Canales explained.
Jermaine Perier, Extension entomologist at the Central Mississippi Research and Extension Center in Raymond, highlighted the necessity of the H-2A program for large-scale operations, especially in harvest seasons.
“This is the typical trend everywhere, especially for vegetables and any other produce you purchase in the grocery section,” Perier said. “A sitting crop, unharvested, becomes more vulnerable to pests each day. Losing an entire crop to a pest outbreak because you’re short-staffed, even for just a day, becomes a real possibility, especially if the operation is certified organic.”
He further emphasized the benefits of returning H-2A workers who have developed skills specific to certain crops, fostering a level of trust between farmers and workers.
Calhoun County, the epicenter of the state’s sweet potato industry, leads the list of counties hiring H-2A laborers, with 2,774 certified positions in 2025, or 42% of the state’s total. George County, with 59 H-2A positions largely supporting the produce industry, and Chickasaw County, also in sweet potato country, followed closely behind.
Lorin Harvey, Extension sweet potato specialist, addressed the question of why local American workers aren’t hired for these positions.
“Frankly, that workforce doesn’t exist,” Harvey said. “Hard, physical, outdoor work plus seasonal employment is a very difficult combination for building a large and dependable local workforce. Farmers have tried hiring locally. In fact, they are legally required to make this attempt before they can use the H2-A program.”
Harvey noted that in 2025, over 415,000 agricultural labor jobs were advertised nationally, but less than 500 had American applicants.
“Farmers aren’t using H-2A because they don’t want American workers,” he explained. “They’re using the program because America still wants American-grown food, but we don’t have enough domestic workers willing and available to do the seasonal work required to plant and harvest it.”
He also highlighted the challenges of hiring H-2A employees, including the complex and expensive process, the temporary nature of the positions, fluctuating labor rates, and the potential for sudden rule changes.
“Despite all that, the labor situation is bad enough that many farms must use the program year after year to ensure their crop gets planted and harvested,” Harvey concluded. “Without H-2A, there would not be a specialty crop industry in Mississippi.”