They already work with an extremely tight domestic labor pool, pushing them to hiring workers from abroad via the H-2A Guest Worker program. But custom harvesters say they’ll face additional hiring challenges now that a travel ban has gone into effect for non-U.S. citizens from South Africa, Brazil, Europe, the UK and Ireland. Going into 2021, custom harvesters say they were more confident about labor availability prior to the ban’s implementation. That’s different with the ban in place; now the industry that accounted for 15,326 H-2A jobs — or 5.6% of all H-2A positions filled — will face similar challenges in 2021 given tight labor availability in rural America. See more on the story.