American farmers have been complaining of labor shortages for several years now. Given a multi-year decline in illegal immigration, and a similarly sustained pickup in the U. S. job market, the complaints are unlikely to stop without an overhaul of immigration rules for farm workers.
几年来，美国农民一直抱怨劳动力短缺。考虑到非法移民数量多年来的下降，以及美国就业市场类似的持续回升，如果不对农场工人的移民规则进行彻底改革，这些投诉就不太可能停止。
Perhaps half of U. S. farm laborers are undocumented immigrants. As fewer such workers enter the U. S., the characteristics of the agricultural workforce are changing. Today’s farm laborers, while still predominantly born in Mexico, are more likely to be settled, rather than migrating, and more likely to be married than single. They are also aging. At the start of this century, about one-third of crop workers were over the age of 35. Now, more than half are. And crop picking is hard on older bodies. One oft-debated cure for this labor shortage remains as implausible as it has been all along: Native U. S. workers won’t be returning to the farm.
也许一半的美国农场工人是无证移民。随着越来越少的这类工人进入美国，农业劳动力的特点正在发生变化。今天的农场工人，虽然仍然主要是出生在墨西哥，更可能定居，而不是迁移，相对单身更有可能结婚。他们也在变老。本世纪初，大约三分之一的农作物工人年龄在35岁以上。现在，超过一半。而且摘庄稼对老年人来说很难。一个经常被争论的解决劳动力短缺的方法仍然是不可信的，因为它一直以来：美国本土工人不会返回农场。
Efforts to create a more straightforward agricultural-workers visa that would enable foreign workers to stay longer in the U. S. and change jobs within the industry have so far failed in Congress. If this doesn’t change, American businesses, communities and consumers will be the losers.
迄今为止，美国国会未能通过一项更为直接的农业工人签证，这项签证将使外国工人能够在美国停留更长时间，并在该行业内更换工作岗位。如果这种情况不改变，美国企业、社区和消费者将是输家。
Mechanization is not the answer either — not yet at least. Production of corn, cotton, rice, soybeans and wheat have been largely mechanized, but many high-value, labor-intensive crops, such as strawberries, need labor. Even dairy farms, where robots currently do only a small share of milking, have a long way to go before they are automated.
机械化也不是答案——至少现在还不是。玉米、棉花、水稻、大豆和小麦的生产已基本实现机械化，但许多高价值、劳动密集型作物，如草莓，需要劳动力。即使是目前机器人只负责少量挤奶的奶牛场，要实现自动化还有很长的路要走。
The H-2A visa has no numerical cap, unlike the H-2B visa for nonagricultural work, which is limited to 66,000 annually. Even so, employers frequently complain that they aren’t allotted all the workers they need. The process is cumbersome, expensive and unreliable. One survey found that bureaucratic delays led H-2A workers to arrive on the job an average of 22 days late. And the shortage is compounded by federal immigration raids, which remove some workers and drive others underground.
H—2A签证没有数字上限，与非农业工作H—2B签证不同，H—2B签证每年限制在66000人。即便如此，雇主们还是经常抱怨他们没有分配到所需的工人。这个过程繁琐、昂贵而且不可靠。一项调查发现，官僚作风的拖延导致H—2A员工平均迟到22天。此外，联邦移民局的突袭行动也加剧了劳动力短缺的问题，这些突袭行动暗中将一些工人转移，并将另一些人驱赶。
As a result, farms have grown increasingly reliant on temporary guest workers using the H-2A visa to fill the gaps in the agricultural workforce. Starting around 2012, requests for the visas rose sharply; from 2011 to 2016 the number of visas issued more than doubled.
因此，农场越来越依赖使用H—2A签证的临时工来填补农业劳动力的缺口。从2012年左右开始，申请签证的人数急剧上升；从2011年到2016年，签发的签证数量增加了一倍多。
In a 2012 survey,71 percent of tree-fruit growers and nearly 80 percent of raisin and berry growers said they were short of labor. Some western growers have responded by moving operations to Mexico. From 1998-2000, 14.5 percent of the fruit Americans consumed was imported. Little more than a decade later, the share of imported fruit had increased to 25.8 percent.
在2012年的一项调查中，71%的果树种植者和近80%的葡萄干和浆果种植者表示他们缺乏劳动力。一些西方种植者通过向墨西哥转移业务做出回应。从1998年到2000年，美国人消费的水果中有14.5%是进口的。不到10年，进口水果的比例就增加到了25.8%。
In effect, the U. S. can import food or it can import the workers who pick it.
实际上，美国可以进口食品，也可以进口采摘食品的工人。
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