Bringing in foreign workers to help with planting, cultivating or harvesting your crops might seem to be a relatively simple matter. You line up the workers, help them get H2A or other program visas and arrange for their travel, right?

As farmers who have hired foreign laborers for any period of time know, it’s not quite that simple, says Brandon Davis, a partner in the Phelps Dunbar law firm in New Orleans, who specializes in farm labor and immigration issues.

Davis discussed those during a webinar titled “The changing landscape: Everything agricultural employers should understand about farm labor law,” one of a monthly series of such programs conducted by the National Agricultural Law Center, which is located at the University of Arkansas.

One area that could be of particular concern right now is compliance with Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) regulations dealing with heat-related illnesses. (Temperatures were exceeding 100 degrees in much of the Mid-South as this is being written.)

OSHA regulations

“Agricultural work is physically demanding – we’re working in the heat, with heavy machinery, for long hours – we’re working in an occupation that is very good for health and at the same time can be hazardous to our health and our well-being,” he said.

“I don’t know if it was in USA Today or some other publication, but there was a comparison between farmers and lawyers that said farmers had the most satisfying work experience and the best health. Lawyers...

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