“I had never worked with mushrooms before,” Luis said, reflecting on his time in Chester County’s mushroom industry. “But my family has always worked in agriculture, so I like it. I’m used to hard work.”
Luis, whose name is a pseudonym to protect his identity, is part of the latest wave of immigrant workers who have, for decades, come to Chester County to work in Pennsylvania’s $1.1 billion mushroom industry. He is a Venezuelan migrant who was granted Temporary Protected Status, or TPS, under the 2023 designation. TPS allows foreign nationals already in the U.S. to remain for six, 12, or 18 months — regardless of how they entered — if their home country is deemed too dangerous for them to return.
In February, President Donald Trump terminated TPS for Venezuelans who received protection under the 2023 expansion. According to the Department of Homeland Security, this designation had allowed approximately 348,000 Venezuelans to remain in the U.S. legally, with many eligible for work authorization. Meanwhile, Venezuelans who were granted TPS under the earlier 2021 designation can retain their status until Sept. 10, 2025. This provides temporary relief but leaves their long-term status uncertain.
The termination of TPS for many Venezuelans, along with Trump’s broader immigration policies — including stricter border enforcement, increased deportations, and tighter restrictions on work permits and asylum protections — will likely shrink the pool of available workers in Pennsylvania’s mushroom industry and other agricultural and food industries.
Changing face of the mushroom workforce
The mushroom industry in Pennsylvania has been shaped and sustained by major waves of U.S. immigration since the late 19th century.
William Swayne, a Quaker florist, is credited with beginning mushroom cultivation in Kennett Square, a small borough in Chester County, in the 1880s.
However, it was Italian immigrants, who began arriving in the early 20th century, who transformed Kennett Square, which bills itself as the “mushroom capital of the world.”
Today, Pennsylvania produces 69% of all mushrooms sold in America, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
Chester County alone produced 199 million pounds of mushrooms — mostly white button mushrooms — in the 2023-24 season. While Chester County remains the hub of production, mushroom farms also extend into adjacent Berks County and parts of northeastern Maryland.
Yet, workforce instability remains a pressing issue, as the industry has struggled for decades to recruit and retain workers.
Mushroom picking is physically demanding. Workers in humid, enclosed growing rooms carefully harvest delicate mushrooms by hand to prevent bruising. Pay is structured around a piece-rate system, where earnings depend on speed and productivity. While this model allows some workers to earn more, it also creates instability, as take-home pay fluctuates based on harvest conditions and market demand. These factors make it difficult to maintain a stable workforce.
As a result, mushroom production in Pennsylvania is highly dependent on immigrant labor. While there are no national statistics tracking the nationalities of workers in the industry, our empirical studies and ongoing field research indicate that most of today’s workers are from Mexico and Guatemala. In recent years, more have arrived from Venezuela and elsewhere.
Many of these newer arrivals have entered the U.S. through programs such as TPS and the Processes for Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans, or CHNV. CHNV allows certain people from those four countries who have a sponsor in the U.S. and who pass a background check to live and work in the U.S. for two years. It was established to grant temporary work authorization to individuals fleeing crises in their home countries.
TPS and CHNV have been instrumental in addressing labor shortages in essential U.S. industries such as agriculture.
At the same time, the long-standing Mexican mushroom workforce is undergoing a generational shift and aging out of field labor. Their U.S.-born children sometimes work harvesting jobs in their teens but are unlikely to stay in agriculture long term.
Rise of mushroom labor contractors
To fill employment gaps, many mushroom farms now turn to labor contractors to recruit, manage, and employ workers.
Contractors typically handle payroll, workers’ compensation, and access to medical care if someone is injured.
On the surface, this system offers benefits for growers. It allows them to adjust their workforce depending on demand while reducing administrative burden and liability.
But for workers, this system can be a double-edged sword.
Evidence from other agricultural industries shows that workers hired through contractors may have less job security, fewer or no benefits, and less direct contact with farm owners — which makes it more difficult to negotiate wages or report workplace concerns.
Some Kennett Square farmworkers we have interviewed see contractors as a source of flexibility.
“I had to miss work for some weeks because my kid was sick, and I lost my spot,” one worker shared. “But then I reached out to a contractor and was able to get another job at a different farm within a day.”
However, that same worker went on to say that this new farm “has wider harvesting beds, and I am getting more tired and have more pain because of it.”
In other words, while labor contractors provide continuity in employment, workers may have less control over where they are placed or the conditions they work under.
For growers, contractors serve as an effective stopgap to keep mushroom farms in operation, but they do not solve their ongoing problem of attracting long-term employees.
Fewer workers, more expensive mushrooms
With fewer workers, mushroom farms may struggle to meet the demand from grocery stores, restaurants, and food processors.
A reduced supply could mean customers pay more for mushrooms at grocery stores and restaurants. If retailers must source mushrooms from other states or abroad, prices could rise further due to transportation expenses, tariffs, and supply chain disruptions.
Without policies that recognize the industry’s year-round labor needs, Pennsylvania mushroom growers will be left scrambling for alternative workforce solutions.
Lawmakers have attempted to address this issue through the Farm Workforce Modernization Act of 2021, which passed the House but stalled in the Senate. If enacted, the bill would create a Certified Agricultural Worker status, which would offer legal protection to experienced farmworkers, and expand H-2A visa eligibility to agricultural workers in year-round jobs such as mushroom farming. The bill also includes a mandatory phase-in of E-Verify for agricultural employers, a federal system used to confirm workers’ legal authorization to work in the U.S.
For now, mushroom farms — and the broader agricultural sector — must prepare for the ripple effects of more rigid immigration restrictions. Without intervention from policymakers, the strain on workers, growers, and consumers is likely to intensify.
Hazel Velasco Palacios is a Ph.D. candidate in Rural Sociology & Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies at Pennsylvania State University. Kathleen Sexsmith is assistant professor of Rural Sociology at Penn State. They are rural sociologists who study labor, migration, and agriculture in the U.S.
This article is republished from The Conversation. Read the original article at theconversation.com/us.
