Four Tennessee farms awarded major grants
June 18, 2024

PALISADE, CO - According to Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) is awarding $50 million to 141 awardees in 40 states and Puerto Rico. Four of those farms are in Tennessee. Through the Farm Labor Stabilization and Protection Pilot Program (FLSP Program), this will reach a national total of 177 unique agricultural operations and over 11,000 workers.

The awards will help improve the resiliency of the U.S. food supply chain by addressing agriculture labor challenges and instability, strengthen protections for farmworkers, and expand legal pathways for labor migration. This program delivers on a commitment made as part of the Los Angeles Declaration on Migration and Protection and furthers the Administration’s commitment to a regional approach to migration in the hemisphere.

“These awards will largely support small and mid-sized farms to ensure they can hire and retain the workers they need to be competitive in the market, while also lifting up rural communities across the country,” said Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack. “Farmworkers make an incredibly important contribution to food and agriculture and ensure we have food on our tables every day. Improving working conditions and quality of life for farmworkers, both U.S. based workers and those that come to our country to work, is one key step in building a stronger, more resilient food supply chain. The Farm Labor Stabilization and Protection Pilot Program demonstrates the Biden-Harris Administration’s commitment to supporting employers and farmworkers alike.”

Tennessee farms receiving grants:

1. Healthy Flavors - $800,000
Healthy Flavors is family-owned business in Tennessee that aims to build an increasingly safe and healthy workplace, where health implies providing employees with the best physical, mental, financial and relationship-oriented environment possible within their means. Their foremost recruitment goal is to seek employees domestically in the U.S. who desire work to commensurate with farming and agriculture lifestyles, and when unable to recruit U.S. based labor turn to the H-2A program, based out of North Central America. As a result of their participation in the FLSP, Healthy Flavors will codify and socialize their bonus programs for all employees, design and implement a weekly housing maintenance plan for farmworker living facilities and formalize team building and conflict resolution efforts into a collaborative working group approach for employee engagement and empowerment. All of these enhancements will ensure an increased well-being and working conditions for the 34 new workers that their FLSP award will help recruit. They will secure an ombudsman to ensure that the most sensitive of issues and topics are voiced by employees. They anticipate these practices can, over time, generate a more positive perception of agricultural work in the labor marketplace.

2. Mountain Meadows Farms - $200,000
Mountain Meadows Farms will bolster their recruitment and worker benefits using $ their FLSP award by providing employees with paid sick leave, a paid bonus, and a weekly housing maintenance plan allowing employees to voice any concerns or problems over the season. In addition, they have formed a non-profit that specializes in aiding farmers and farm workers with measured goals, and the tools to attain these goals, through training, monitoring services, data collection, resources, and tool development. Farm worker training will include worker rights, safety, and expectations. Mountain Meadows Farm will be a part of the Elevated Housing pilot program to monitor clean and safe living conditions and bi-lingual services. The potential impact of the FLSP on Mountain Meadows farm will allow them to build resilience to labor shortages while making them an employer of choice via enhancements in their worker benefits.

3. Natchez Tree Company, LLC - $100,000
This farm focuses on the maintenance and growth of various types of trees. Challenged with employee retention, wage hikes, and growing competition, Natchez Tree Company, LLC seeks to improve its current conditions while remaining committed to the values of community, integrity, responsibility, and respect. The company provides various benefits to its employees, including improvements in its current worker collaborations and housing maintenance plan. The award will generate opportunities for Natchez Tree Company, LLC to stimulate the local economy, expand its operations to meet client demands, and maintain lasting relationships with its employees.

4. Ronald Thomas Yeargin - $100,000
Ronald Yeargin's farming operation will use their FLSP award to improve pay and working conditions to improve the recruitment and retention of employees. The FLSP will enable Mr. Yeargin to provide bonus pay and paid sick leave to his employees. Additionally, Mr. Yeargin plans to utilize the FLSP to improve housing that he provides workers by upgrading the heating and cooling system and upgrading his existing transportation equipment. The FLSP would enable this small family-owned farming operation the financial support to immediately bolster a U.S. based labor shortage while increasing the working/living conditions of their operations employees. The potential impact would be substantial as it would allow for labor stabilization and an increase in agricultural productivity.

USDA announced the FLSP Program in September 2023, in coordination with other federal agencies, to help address workforce needs in agriculture; promote a safe and healthy work environment, as well as ethical recruitment for farmworkers; and support lawful migration pathways for workers, including expansion of labor pathways for workers from Northern Central America, through the H-2A visa program. FLSP was designed with significant input from immigration, labor, and agricultural stakeholders – informed by the experiences of farmworkers and farmers themselves.

The FLSP Program grants will support a range of required and elective supplemental commitments to expand benefits and protections for all employees.

Examples of awardee commitments include:
• Establishing robust pay-related benefits that have the potential to raise earnings for thousands of workers, as well as provide them more time with their families or taking care of their health through policies such as personal and paid sick time off, and mid-season vacation leave;
• Markedly improving working and living conditions by strengthening employer-employee engagement, such as establishing Collaborative Working Groups with robust farmworker representation and partnerships with external organizations that have longstanding experience collaborating with farmworkers;
• Providing additional worker-friendly benefits, such as advancement and management training opportunities, driver’s license training, no-cost English classes for employees, and additional recreation spaces in housing facilities;
• Supporting Know-Your-Rights-and-Resources training sessions for all workers to ensure they understand their legal rights as workers in the United States;
• Participation in Worker-driven Social Responsibility programs – a proven model for improving workplace environments – such as the Fair Food Program;
• Disclosing recruitment practices and advancing ethical, safe recruitment practices that are essential to protecting workers from illegal fees, undue debt, exploitation, and even human trafficking;
• 60 percent of employer awardees that plan to utilize the H-2A visa program committed to recruiting workers from Northern Central America.

You may view the complete list of awardees here.