Farm Labor Protections and Price Premiums for Organic Food

Angela Jungbluth, Jungman Choi and K. Aleks Schaefer

Applied Economic Perspectives and Policy, 2026, vol. 48, issue 2, 359-370

Abstract: Is there a trade‐off between labor protections and environmental stewardship for organic foods? We investigate this question in the context of the U.S. apple industry. U.S. organic apple producers are heavily reliant on access to temporary foreign labor under the H‐2A visa program. Using monthly U.S. retail price data from 2010 to 2023, we estimate the extent to which increased labor protections under H‐2A have increased retail prices for organic apples relative to conventional apples. We find that changes in the H‐2A Adverse Effect Wage Rate (AEVR) affect retail organic price premiums. Our results suggest that a 1% increase in the AEVR corresponds to a 0.1% increase in the retail price premium for organic apples. Wage increases enhance security for foreign workers and support domestic production, but they may also make sustainable organic products more costly for consumers.

Date: 2026
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://doi.org/10.1002/aepp.70034

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:wly:apecpp:v:48:y:2026:i:2:p:359-370

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Applied Economic Perspectives and Policy from John Wiley & Sons
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Wiley Content Delivery ().