Global Food Output Runs Into Migrant Worker Woes

In the far reaches of North Dakota, the days are long and the work is hard on Blake Inman’s wheat fields. He usually hires the same eight farmhands from South Africa to tend his crops. This year, half of the usual crew never made it.

Even as the numbers of visas issued for farm workers climbed this year, there are pockets of labor shortages developing in U.S. agriculture. Most of the time, it’s for highly specialized jobs, like running complex equipment on grain farms.