This week’s report is written by Bill Rollyson. Bill is a long-time advocate for the FAIRtax and has educated thousands of people about the benefits of replacing the present income/payroll tax with the FAIRtax.
Incentives Matter: Ending Undocumented Farm Labor Dependency Through Automation, American Jobs, and the FairTax
America’s farms feed the nation and much of the world. Yet for decades, a significant portion of the hired agricultural workforce—especially in labor-intensive specialty crops like fruits, vegetables, and nuts—has relied on unauthorized workers. Recent estimates place the unauthorized share of the hired farm workforce at roughly 35-42 percent, with H-2A legal guest workers growing rapidly to around 400,000 certified positions in recent years, while U.S.-born workers make up only about 30 percent.
https://www.congress.gov/crs external products/IF/PDF/IF12979/IF12979.1 .pdf
This arrangement is not sustainable. It creates economic distortions, fiscal burdens, border pressures, and human costs that no serious country should accept indefinitely. The core problem is incentives. Current policies make cheap, flexible unauthorized labor attractive relative to the heavily regulated H-2A program, while domestic workers largely avoid the most demanding seasonal field jobs under existing wages and conditions. Meanwhile, the tax system penalizes production and investment.
We can change the incentives. Redirect government support toward agricultural robotics and automation for small and medium-sized farms, prioritize American operators for the new machines, and replace the income and payroll tax system with a consumption-based FairTax. The result would be more efficient domestic production, higher-quality American jobs, reduced taxpayer costs, stronger borders, and broader economic growth—without pretending that the status quo is inevitable or desirable.
The Broken Incentive Structure
H-2A employers must provide free housing that meets standards, cover inbound and outbound transportation and subsistence, offer free daily worksite transport, pay the Adverse Effect Wage Rate (or higher), guarantee most of the contract hours, and navigate substantial paperwork and fees. These non-wage costs commonly add several thousand dollars per worker per season— often $4,000 to $12,000 depending on duration and location. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdfdirect/10.1002/app5.70Q35
H-2A wages are also generally exempt from employer Social Security and Medicare taxes, creating one limited advantage, but the overall package remains expensive and rigid compared with the informal market.
Unauthorized workers typically involve lower effective wages or piece rates, far fewer mandated benefits, greater short-term flexibility, and no formal program bureaucracy. Many farms therefore use a mix or rely on farm labor contractors who supply whatever labor is available. The outcome is predictable: continued dependence on unauthorized labor, political pressure for expansions of guest-worker programs or de facto tolerance of illegal presence, and ongoing strain on housing, emergency medical care, education for U.S.-born children, and enforcement resources.
This is not a free market. It is a policy-created distortion that externalizes costs onto taxpayers and communities while discouraging investment in labor-saving technology and domestic workforce development.
Automation Is Ready to Scale
The technology to reduce dependence on large seasonal crews already exists and is improving rapidly. In 2026, commercial or near-commercial robotic systems are operating for strawberries, apples, greenhouse tomatoes, and leafy greens. Multi-arm platforms, vision systems, soft grippers, and autonomous vehicles can identify ripe fruit, pick with acceptable damage rates, and work longer hours than humans.
https://robotomated.com/learn/agricultural/robotic-harvesting-guide
Strawberry harvesters from companies such as Advanced Farm Technologies, Agrobot, and Harvest CROO are in commercial use or advanced pilots in California, Florida, and elsewhere. Apple systems using vacuum or multi-arm approaches have reached commercial deployment. Greenhouse tomato robots benefit from structured environments and are approaching or matching human productivity in many cases. Autonomous tractors, laser weeders, and precision sprayers are further along and already reducing chemical use and labor needs across broader acreage.
https://www.roboticscenter.ai/applications/agricultural-robots
These systems are not yet universal across every crop or field condition. Delicate soft fruits remain challenging, and full parity with peak human speed for all tasks will take additional years. But the trajectory is clear, payback periods are shrinking as labor costs rise and robot performance improves, and many operations already find the economics competitive when reliability and extended operating hours are considered.
Government can accelerate adoption. Existing USDA specialty crop research, rural development, and related programs already support some mechanization work. Redirecting a larger share of agricultural support—crop insurance subsidies, specialty crop grants, research funding—toward robotics, sensors, and related capital for small and medium farms would level the playing field. Larger operations will automate regardless; targeted help for family and mid-sized farms preserves the structure of American agriculture rather than forcing consolidation solely through labor pressure.
American Workers Operating the Machines
The goal is not to eliminate farm employment. It is to transform it. Low-skill, physically punishing seasonal field work has long been unattractive to most U.S. citizens at prevailing wages. Machine operation, maintenance, supervision, data analysis, and logistics are different. These roles involve monitoring fleets via tablets and software, performing basic repairs, managing precision applications, and overseeing operations. They are less seasonal, better compensated relative to pure manual labor, and far more appealing to the domestic workforce.
Conditioning public support on preference for U.S. citizens and permanent residents in these operator and technical roles would create a practical pathway. Pair it with training programs through community colleges, extension services, and industry partnerships. The result is higher- skill rural jobs that keep young people in agricultural communities and raise overall earnings potential.
The Fairfax Multiplier
Tax reform amplifies the shift. The FairTax (H.R. 25) would repeal federal income taxes, payroll taxes (FICA), corporate income taxes, and estate/gift taxes, replacing them with a national retail sales tax on new goods and services, paired with a monthly prebate that effectively exempts spending up to the poverty level. https://fairtax.org/articles/the-chairmans-report-june-12th-2026
For farmers, the elimination of payroll taxes on wages and income taxes on production earnings removes a significant cost layer and improves cash flow for capital investment in robots and equipment. Retained earnings stay available for modernization rather than being taxed away. The same applies to the American operators who would staff the new systems: take-home pay rises because there is no federal withholding on wages. Businesses face lower embedded tax costs, improving competitiveness against imports and encouraging domestic expansion and headquarters location in the United States.
Analyses of consumption-based tax shifts generally project increased capital formation, higher productivity, and stronger long-run output growth, though transition effects on consumer prices require careful management through the prebate and overall fiscal discipline https://www.americanactionforum.org/research/evaluation-and-macroeconomic-impact-of-
the-fairtax/
It should be pointed out, the same is true under the income tax system we have today. A lack of fiscal discipline creates poor economic results. The FairTax is much more visible than the income tax, increasing accountability.
For agriculture specifically, the combination of lower production taxes and automation support creates powerful incentives to invest in American capacity rather than relying on imported labor or foreign food supplies.
Broader Benefits
The downstream effects compound. Reduced demand for large seasonal migrant workforces eases pressure on housing markets in agricultural regions, lowers uncompensated medical care and education costs associated with unauthorized presence, and diminishes the fiscal incentives that some localities and states have used to attract or accommodate illegal migration. Stronger borders become politically and practically easier when agriculture is no longer structurally dependent on unauthorized labor.
Domestic food production grows more efficient and resilient. Export competitiveness improves. Rural economies gain higher-quality jobs instead of temporary low-wage ones. Overall economic growth from capital deepening and better incentives attracts more business investment. And for younger Americans skeptical of free markets, a visible demonstration that technology, American workers, and smarter tax policy can deliver abundance and opportunity undercuts the appeal of socialism.
Realism About the Transition
This is not instantaneous. Full robotic capability across all crops and conditions will take years of continued engineering progress. Upfront capital costs remain high even with subsidies; training pipelines need building; some communities currently dependent on migrant labor will face adjustment. Policy design must avoid simply accelerating consolidation that leaves only the largest players.
Yet the alternative—perpetual reliance on unauthorized labor or ever-larger guest-worker programs—is worse. Demographics, enforcement trends, and rising expectations among younger generations of farmworkers already tighten the supply of traditional field labor. Technology is moving forward regardless.
The question is whether government policy will accelerate a high-skill, high-productivity American model or continue subsidizing the old one.
The Path Forward
Incentives matter. We currently subsidize housing, transport, and bureaucracy for foreign guest workers while taxing production and American wages. We tolerate a large, unauthorized presence that externalizes costs. Flip the incentives: make automation the lower-cost, higher-reliability path for farms of all sizes; make American machine operators the preferred workforce; and stop taxing the act of producing and earning in America through the income and payroll systems.
Redirect agricultural support toward robotics and training. Advance FairTax-style reform that rewards investment and production. Enforce the border while giving agriculture a viable domestic alternative. The result is not austerity or isolation. It is a more sovereign, productive, and opportunity-rich agricultural sector that serves American workers, American consumers, and the long-term strength of the country.
The technology exists. The policy tools exist. What has been missing is the will to align incentives with the outcomes we claim to want. Now is the time to change that.
CONCLUSION
Bill’s article clearly sets forth how the FAIRtax has done an excellent job of setting forth how the FAIRtax will help farmers. If we help the farmers we help all of us.
Many people are upset with our present income/payroll tax system because it benefits only a small percentage of the population—the very wealthy and Members of Congress who fund their re-election campaigns by selling favorable tax treatment to the highest bidder.
For the rest of us, it’s an expensive, intrusive, incomprehensible mess that none of us fully understands.
THE FAIRTAX IS THE ANSWER.
The FAIRtax Act (H.R. 25) is more than just a proposal for a retail sales tax; it is a fundamental restructuring of the federal fiscal structure. Unlike other excise taxes which normally are applied to specific products and in different percentage amounts, the FAIRtax applies a 23% rate to all new retail products and retail services.
The FAIRtax is a national retail sales tax on new retail goods and retail services which provides a family credit so that all purchases up to the poverty level for each family are not taxed. There is no withholding from your paycheck, and YOU NEVER HAVE TO FILE A TAX RETURN TELLING THE GOVERNMENT HOW MUCH YOU EARNED AND HOW MUCH YOU SPENT, AND YOU’LL NEVER BE HARASSED BY THE IRS EVER AGAIN.
Many of you have labored tirelessly for freedom from the federal income tax and the IRS. You deserve a great deal of credit for your efforts to educate the American people on the need to fund the American government in a way that is good for America and returns freedom to the American people.
It is imperative, though, that we don’t replace the current income tax and the IRS with an alternative system that can still be manipulated by the Ruling Elite. We must let Congress and the President know that the best way to replace the income tax and the IRS is with the FAIRtax.
Make no mistake about it. The FAIRtax is a grave threat to the Ruling Elites. It will strip them of their power and their ability to control us though the tax system. Their opposition to the FAIRtax will be fierce and unrelenting. And don’t think for an instant that they won’t use half-truths, deception and downright lies in their desperate attempt to hang on to their power.
However, with the support of this President, we can finally eliminate the income tax and the IRS!!!
Of course, the best course of action is to not only repeal the income tax and abolish the IRS but to repeal the 16th Amendment as well so no future administration can ever shackle the American people with an income tax again.
We must come together and ensure that real tax reform, the FAIRtax, is not subverted by the Elites in D.C.
This will take the diligent efforts of all of us. We need your financial assistance, and we need your grass roots assistance.
If you have contacts that will allow us to get more information to President Trump about the FAIRtax please let us know.
Please email us at info@FAIRtax.org and we will give you some options on how you can best help us.
At a minimum, please call your Congressional representative and ask if he or she supports the FAIRtax. If so, thank him/her for their support and suggest they become a cosponsor of HR-25 if they’re not one already. If not, ask why not. If your representative claims to be unfamiliar with the FAIRtax, offer to have someone come to their office and explain it to them.
Please go to this link to invest in AFFT and help us pass the FAIRtax. It’s an investment in your and your family’s future.
THE SOLUTION—PASS THE FAIRTAX!
Why would D.C. pass the FAIRtax and give up this almost unlimited source of donations? The only way that they will is if the rest of us demand it!
Isn’t it time to end this ludicrous tax collection system and the IRS?
HELP BRING ABOUT REAL TAX REFORM AND STOP FUTURE IRS ABUSES
By contributing (investing) $10.40 per month, you help provide a financial base to AFFT. If you can make larger contributions (investments), these will be used not for salaries, as we are all volunteers, but for the needed updates to our economic studies which will be vital for all future years.
Please go to this link to invest in AFFT and help us pass the FAIRtax. It’s an investment in your and your family’s future.