A new paper has been published about labor issues in agroecological systems in the United States, by former lab member Jeffrey Liebert along with Rachel Bezner Kerr and several other co-authors. The research involved a survey with 599 fruit and vegetable farmers across the United States, and 49 interviews with farmers in New York and California. We found that labor barriers were one of the most common reasons farmers gave for not using an agroecological practice. Importantly, farmers who did not use an agroecological practice considered labor to be a bigger issue than those farmers who had experience with that agroecological practice. Large scale farmers had greater labor shortages than small and medium farmers, and labor policy changes worsened farmers’ labor difficulties. The paper is available here and the full citation is: Liebert, J., Bezner Kerr, R., Gennet, S. et al. Not as hard as it seems? Labor challenges and opportunities for agroecological practices in the United States. Agriculture and Human Values (2025). https://doi-org/10.1007/s10460-025-10796-z
Jeff Liebert in front of a vegetable farm in California, June 2017.
A large-scale vegetable farm in California. Large-scale farms cited labor to be a more significant barrier to the use of agroecological practices than small or mid-sized fruit and vegetable farms.
