A migrant farmworker is someone whose primary job is in agriculture on a seasonal basis and who moves to a temporary home to do that work. That distinction, the moving part, is what separates a migrant farmworker from a seasonal one. Seasonal workers do the same jobs but stay in one place. Roughly 2.9 million agricultural workers live in the United States, and about 15% of them are classified as migratory.
The Legal Definition
Federal law spells out the difference clearly. Under the Public Health Services Act, a migratory agricultural worker is “an individual whose principal employment is in agriculture on a seasonal basis…and who establishes for the purposes of such employment a temporary abode.” In plain terms, if you pick strawberries for a living and you relocate every few months to follow the harvest, you’re a migrant farmworker. If you pick strawberries but live permanently near the farm, you’re a seasonal farmworker.
This legal distinction matters because it determines which federal health programs, housing protections, and labor regulations apply. Migrant workers qualify for services through federally funded Migrant Health Centers, for example, while seasonal workers fall under a slightly different category of support.
What Migrant Farmworkers Actually Do
The core of the work is physical. Migrant farmworkers plant, cultivate, and harvest crops by hand or with hand tools. That includes gathering fruits and vegetables from fields, severing crops from soil or stems at the growing position, pulling tomatoes from vines, picking tobacco leaves and stringing them onto poles for drying, and sorting produce in the field before it moves to packing sheds. They work with cotton, tobacco, grains, fruits, and vegetables, depending on the region and season.
Not everything in a field counts as harvesting. Chopping cotton, for instance, is a cultivation task. So is removing small undesirable fruit before the main harvest to improve crop quality. These are growing operations, legally distinct from the harvest itself. But migrant workers often do both, rotating through planting, weeding, thinning, pruning, and picking as the growing season demands.
The work is intensely seasonal. A crew might spend spring planting in southern Texas, summer harvesting blueberries and cherries in Michigan, and fall picking apples in Washington. The schedule is dictated entirely by when crops are ready, which means long hours during peak harvest and stretches of transition between jobs.
Where They Travel
Farmworkers in the U.S. generally follow three broad migration routes. The Eastern stream runs up the Atlantic coast. The Midwest stream typically starts in South Texas and moves through states like Ohio and Michigan, which has historically been the most prominent destination in that corridor. The Western stream covers California and the Pacific Northwest.
Michigan’s role in the Midwest stream goes back over a century. Starting around 1918, the sugar beet industry recruited thousands of workers from Mexico to tend fields in Michigan and Ohio. As beet farming became more mechanized, the demand shifted to crops that still required hands: blueberries, apples, and cherries grown in high-density plantings across western Michigan. Those crops still rely heavily on manual labor today.
Who They Are
The majority of agricultural workers in the U.S., about 70%, are foreign-born. Many come from Mexico and Central America, though the workforce includes people from a wide range of countries. A significant portion enter the country through the H-2A temporary agricultural visa program, which allows employers to bring in foreign workers when they can demonstrate there aren’t enough U.S. workers available to fill the jobs.
To use the H-2A program, an employer must first try to recruit domestically. If that effort falls short, they can petition for foreign workers, but with conditions. H-2A workers must be paid at least the Adverse Effect Wage Rate, a federally set minimum that varies by state and is designed to prevent the hiring of foreign labor from dragging down wages for domestic workers. As of 2025, the national average AEWR sits at $17.74 per hour. For range occupations like herding livestock, the rate is $2,058.31 per month. Employers must also provide free housing that meets federal safety standards and transportation from that housing to the worksite.
H-2A workers are guaranteed employment for at least 75% of the hours specified in their contract, which offers some protection against being brought to the U.S. only to find there’s no work. Retaliation against workers who report violations is prohibited under federal law.
Health Risks on the Job
Migrant farmwork is one of the most physically dangerous occupations in the country. The combination of outdoor heat, repetitive manual labor, and chemical exposure creates a set of health risks that most workers face with limited access to medical care.
Heat illness is the most immediate threat. Studies have found that between 18% and 79% of migrant farmworkers experience heat-related illness symptoms during a given season, a range that reflects differences in climate, crop type, and working conditions. Symptoms start with heavy sweating, dizziness, fatigue, and muscle cramps and can escalate to life-threatening heat stroke. One study found that 33% of migrant agricultural workers in the U.S. experienced acute kidney injury, a condition strongly linked to repeated heat stress and dehydration over time.
Pesticide exposure is the other major concern. Workers who handle or work near treated crops can absorb chemicals through their skin or inhale them. Research conducted in Mexico found that farmworkers with higher pesticide exposure showed significantly greater declines in kidney function compared to those with less exposure, suggesting the two risks compound each other.
Housing and Living Conditions
Because migrant workers relocate for each job, their housing is typically employer-provided. Under the Migrant and Seasonal Agricultural Worker Protection Act, any person or organization that owns or controls housing used for migrant workers must meet federal and state safety and health standards. Federal investigators have the authority to enter and inspect these facilities, review payroll records, and interview workers to check for compliance.
In practice, the quality of housing varies enormously. Some employers provide clean, well-maintained dormitories or mobile homes. Others offer structures that barely meet minimum standards. Because workers often live on or adjacent to the farms where they work, their entire daily life can be contained within employer-controlled property, which creates a kind of isolation that compounds other challenges.
Barriers Beyond the Field
Living on a remote farm where your employer controls your housing, transportation, and schedule makes it difficult to access anything independently. Language barriers are a major factor: many migrant workers speak Spanish or indigenous languages and have limited English proficiency, making it hard to navigate healthcare systems, legal services, or even grocery stores in unfamiliar communities. Information barriers add to the problem. Workers may not know what services are available to them or how to reach them without employer assistance.
These barriers are especially acute for H-2A workers, who are foreign-born, tied to a specific employer by their visa, and often unfamiliar with the communities where they’re placed. The combination of geographic isolation, language gaps, and employer dependence means that even when protections exist on paper, accessing them in practice can be a different story entirely.