United States: Crackdown on Foreign Drivers Threatens Agricultural Workforce

A new regulatory battle is brewing at the heart of American agricultural logistics.
The strict enforcement of a Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) rule regarding commercial driver’s licenses (CDL) for non-American drivers could sideline up to 75% of the transportation workforce deemed “critical” for harvests.

Agricultural organizations are sounding the alarm: Many producers rely on seasonal foreign drivers to move crops between farms, silos and processing plants. If these drivers lose their permission to operate for administrative reasons, the immediate consequence would be a shortage of road capacity at the most sensitive time of the year, with the result that crops would go uncollected or produce would be left in the fields.

Behind this tug-of-war lie two visions: on one side, the federal administration, which wants to ensure that all drivers meet the same safety and certification requirements; on the other, an agricultural sector that reminds us that the national workforce is already insufficient and that recruitment times are incompatible with production cycles.

Carriers specializing in agro-logistics, on the other hand, fear a domino effect:
– increase in transportation costs,
– extension of collection times,
– weakening of food supply chains in certain regions.

In the short term, professional associations are requesting relaxations or transitional mechanisms to avoid a sudden shock. But the signal is clear: the regulation on foreign drivers is becoming a risk factor in its own right for agricultural land logistics in the United States.

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