Harvesting crops during Coronavirus | Arizona lettuce farmer John Boelts | Vance Crowe Podcast

About this episode

John Boelts, an iceberg lettuce and vegetable farmer in Yuma, Arizona and longtime American Farm Bureau advocate, joins Vance's early "Coronavirus Perspective" mini-series to explain how COVID-19 is disrupting an already fragile agricultural labor system. Filming live from an active lettuce harvest, Boelts describes his community's roughly 50,000 agricultural workers, most of them first- or second-generation immigrants, some commuting 15,000-strong across the border daily from San Luis, Mexico, others cycling seasonally between Salinas and Yuma. He details the decades-old, deliberately restrictive H-2A guest worker program (a mid-1980s labor-union compromise tied to the era's amnesty deal), and explains the acute new risk: State Department consulates and embassies abroad — required to process H-2A applications — are shuttering due to coronavirus, threatening the pipeline of future seasonal labor across the entire country's fruit, vegetable, and tree-crop industries. He also pushes back on the idea that newly unemployed Americans will simply fill agricultural labor gaps, citing historical precedent (post-9/11) that this rarely happens despite decent pay ($12–25/hour). The conversation closes with COVID safety measures Boelts has implemented on his farm (distancing, dedicated equipment assignments, translated CDC guidance) and his own "two weeks" prediction — that things will look largely the same, with slower-building longer-term concerns (e.g., the demise of shared salad bars) over the following months.

“That's really the way all of agriculture across the country once they labor supply to be. But right now we're dealing with this difficult antiquated program called H2A as a stop gap and it's, it's not the best bandaid in the world, if you know what I mean, to fix a broken system.”

“An iceberg lettuce field... has about a four day harvest window to have optimal yield and quality... you get much beyond that and it just doesn't work... if you don't have those workers there on the day they're there to harvest... food rots in the fields and we aren't filling up the grocery stores in the way that we need to.”

Key moments

• Vance explains he fast-tracked this interview after seeing Boelts discuss on Twitter how coronavirus is shuttering embassies that process migrant worker visas.
• Boelts describes his community's roughly 50,000 agricultural workers and the daily 15,000-person border crossing at San Luis, Mexico that supplies harvest labor.
• Detailed explanation of the H-2A guest worker program's deliberately restrictive mid-1980s design, cut as a labor-union concession tied to that era's amnesty deal.
• The specific new coronavirus risk — State Department consulates and embassies abroad, required for H-2A visa processing, are shutting down, threatening future labor supply nationwide (Christmas tree farms, orchards, and more, not just Yuma lettuce).
• Boelts raises the possibility that the US-Mexico border itself could close to commuter workers, similar to the Canadian border closure.
• The stakes made concrete — a lettuce field has roughly a four-day harvest window before quality loss, so any labor gap directly threatens grocery store supply.
• Boelts directly addresses (and largely dismisses) the idea that newly unemployed Americans will backfill agricultural labor shortages, citing historical precedent from 9/11.
• Concrete on-farm COVID safety measures — six-foot distancing, dedicated equipment assignments, translated CDC guidance sheets distributed to workers.
• Boelts' "two weeks" prediction — little will change immediately, but longer-term shifts (like the end of shared salad bars) are the real concern over 2-4 months.

Notable quotes

“That state department location, the consulates and the embassies there in Mexico... those are being shuttered right now. That's a big concern for us over the long term for all of American agriculture.”

“An iceberg lettuce field... has about a four day harvest window... you get much beyond that and it just doesn't work... food rots in the fields.”

“Historically, even through crisis times, like after nine eleven... we didn't see that happen at all. Typically folks will hang around for quite a while in the marketplace waiting for a job that they think suits them.”

“I think it'll look a lot the same as it does today... but it's more the tongs you might handle at a salad bar... how that might impact people over the next several months.”