When Karl Shlagel describes his 150-acre farm as a “family affair,” he talks about his father, Russell, whose German immigrant grandfather bought the land in 1911; his two brothers, who’ve spent a lifetime determined to keep it profitable; and Roberto — a migrant laborer who joined the farm about 20 years ago.

Shlagel spent years trying to find American workers, to no avail. Roberto, who declined to share his last name for fear of being targeted, brought his son, Humberto, and brother José Carlos to fill the gap through the federal H-2A visa program, designed to remedy labor shortages in agriculture with seasonal migrant labor.

Maryland farms have increasingly relied on H-2A workers to fill labor gaps, which mirrors national trends — H-2A visas nearly tripled over the last decade. It’s an expensive effort for farmers: Shlagel’s grown his workforce to eight migrant laborers and pays them at least $17.96 per hour — about $2 above the state’s minimum wage — funds their $600 asylum processing fees, and provides both travel and free housing.

But that may change. A new interim U.S. Department of Labor rule currently in effect lowers the minimum amount employers can pay hourly workers on H-2A visas in each state. Farm bureaus and organizations say this could eventually lead to stabler food prices and reduce the cost of labor — among the largest drains on farmers’ budgets — after a trying year in agriculture. But labor advocates say what little relief this brings will put the workers producing the food in a vulnerable position and cost them billions in wages.

Shlagel said it’s been a difficult year for his Waldorf business, as it has been for many Maryland farms. He worried the Labor Department would raise wages again this fall, as the costs have cut into his farm’s profitability. He’s leaning on purchases from Giant Food, which buys his vegetables, though grocers are cutting prices. Grants that helped him sell directly in bulk to the Maryland Food Bank — a part of the farm’s longstanding effort to address food insecurity — have disappeared.

“We’re hoping with bated breath that we see some relief ... and this would be a level of relief for us, for sure,” he said of the lower wages.

The agriculture sector’s struggle, also felt from broiling trade wars and frequently shifting tariff rates, prompted scrutiny of President Donald Trump’s policies among a group that’s often supported his platform.

“This year, it’s been really hard to rely on the government,” said Emma Jagoz, who operates Moon Valley Farm and has used H-2A workers for the last three years, calling them integral to her operation. She’s expecting a grant program to help her business afford the additional labor.

On Monday, Trump announced that he is evaluating the hurt felt by farms and planning a $12 billion aid package to be disbursed at the end of February, the latest effort by the administration to try and address affordability concerns.

The American Farm Bureau Federation has said that lifting restraints on the H-2A program would drastically decrease food costs and reliance on imports. Federation President Zippy Duvall said in a statement that in most states, the new rates will “help farmers afford to get crops from the fields to the tables of American families.”

Labor groups also believe the current state of the industry requires reform, but not at the expense of workers. Julia Solórzano, legal and policy director of the Baltimore-based nonprofit Centro de los Derechos del Migrante, said the rule as written will lead to a $17 billion cut in wages for H-2A workers over the next 10 years. The program has already suffered from a lack of government oversight and worker protections, enabling violations from trafficking to wage theft, she said.

The Labor Department’s rule splits laborers into two skill levels. In Maryland, the vast majority of workers will be paid roughly $15.35 hourly, and the others $18.21, based on their experience and prior training. The wage will also take into account the value of housing employers are expected to provide.

Subtracting the value of migrant workers’ housing from the new wage rates would be a decrease of about $2 an hour in Maryland, making the state one of eight where the majority of H-2A workers will see their pay rates fall below state minimum wage. Solórzano expects this to cause confusion despite the minimum wage taking precedence in setting pay starting Jan. 1, 2026.

The United Farm Workers Foundation filed a lawsuit prompted by the changes on Nov. 21, seeking to block the “arbitrary and capricious” rule.

Laborers are already receiving work orders for these lower wages, Solórzano said, though the ongoing lawsuit claims the rule still needs revisions and agency review following a public comment period that ended last week.

Maryland Legal Aid said in a public comment that shifting the burden of housing from the employer to the employee does not properly address the current pay disparities between U.S and migrant farm laborers. Instead, it pushes them both further into poverty and makes critical farm jobs more difficult to fill, the group said.

Shlagel said he cares about his laborers. He doesn’t want to push them into poverty or open up more people to exploitation. But he also can’t keep paying higher labor costs while watching his business and other farms around him suffer.

“It’s unfortunate because if you eat in America, at some point a foreign worker has been involved in that food process, whether it was the picking, the packing or the cooking,” he said. “So this is something that needs to be desperately looked at.”