In October 2025, the US Department of Labor made three major changes to H-2A regulations to reduce the cost of H-2A workers. DOL: changed the database used to set hourly Adverse Effect Wage Rates ...

Meatpacking plants have long relied on immigrant workers to staff dis-assembly lines that extract cuts of meat from carcasses. The Big Four meatpackers, JBS, Tyson Foods, Cargill, and National Beef, ...

UC Davis hosted a farm labor conference May 21-23, 2025 conference that examined current farm labor issues, continuities and changes in California farm labor over the half century since the enactment ...

US agriculture is a 50/50 industry, meaning that half of farm sales are from crops and half are the sale of animal products. California agriculture is a 70/30 state, meaning that 70 percent of farm ...

The H-2A program allows US employers who anticipate shortages of seasonal farm workers to be certified by DOL to recruit and employ H-2A workers to fill seasonal farm jobs for up to 10 months. DOL ...

Spain. Spain has the EU’s most welcoming immigration policy, especially for migrants from Latin America. Over a third of the nine million migrants in Spain arrived since PM Pedro Sánchez took office ...

Market-weight cattle go to beef processors. Four firms, JBS, Cargill, Tyson Foods and National Beef, process 85 percent of US beef and most US pork and chicken. In November 2025, the Justice ...

USDA. USDA is shrinking and moving away from Washington DC. There were 110,000 USDA employees in January 2025 and less than 90,000 at the end of the year; most of those who left took buyouts.

California had $61 billion in farm sales in 2024, led by $8.6 billion worth of milk, $5.6 billion each worth of almonds and grapes, $5 billion worth of cattle and calves, $3.6 billion worth of lettuce ...

Few renters who falsify rental applications are prosecuted because many have little income and few assets, However, once in an apartment, they delay their eviction, which was easier during covid when ...

Mexico. Mexico’s minimum wage rose from 279 pesos to 315 pesos a day ($17.25) on January 1, 2026 in most of the country and from 420 to 441 pesos a day ($24.25) in border areas.

California’s minimum wage rose from $16.50 to $16.90 January 1, 2026; California is one of 19 states that raised their minimum wages in 2026. Washington has the highest state minimum wage of $17.13 an ...