Iowa and Missouri farm workers earning more than national average

May 27, 2016

Numbers are shown in USDA’s latest NASS report

By Diego Flammini
Assistant Editor, North American Content
Farms.com

According to a recent report from the USDA’s National Agricultural Statistics Service, farm workers in Iowa and Missouri are earning above the national average.

The report looks at the reference week of April 10 to 16, and approximately 22,000 people were hired by farms within that time. The employees were paid an average of $13.17 per hour, up $1.09 from $12.08 per hour in April 2015.

On a national level, farm operators paid workers an average of $12 per hour, up from $11.43 an hour in April 2015.

Field workers in Iowa and Missouri were paid an average of $12.89 per hour this April, an increase of $1.97 from $10.92 per hour last April.

USDA

Livestock workers earned $13.26 hourly in April, compared to $11.79 in April 2015.

Operators hired 3,000 less workers during the reference week compared to April 2015. Employees worked an average of 37.8 hours per week, an increase from 37 hours in April 2014.

The states that saw the largest increases in hired workers dating back to the April 2015 reference week are Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Michigan, Minnesota, Oregon, Washington state and Wisconsin.

Iowa, Kentucky, Missouri, North Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia and West Virginia saw the largest decreases in hired workers since the April 2015 reference week.

Video: Evolution of Beef Cattle Farming

The Clear Conversations podcast took to the road for a special episode recorded in Nashville during CattleCon, bringing listeners straight into the heart of the cattle industry. Host Tracy Sellers welcomed rancher Steve Wooten of Beatty Canyon Ranch in Colorado for a wide-ranging discussion that blended family history and sustainability, particularly as it relates to the future of beef production.

Sustainability emerged as a central theme of the conversation, a word that Wooten acknowledges can mean very different things depending on who you ask. For him, sustainability starts with the soil. Healthy soil produces healthy grass, which supports efficient cattle capable of producing year after year with minimal external inputs. It’s an approach that equally considers vegetation, animal efficiency, and long-term profitability.

That philosophy aligned naturally with Wooten’s involvement in the U.S. Roundtable for Sustainable Beef, where he served as a representative for the Colorado Cattlemen’s Association. The roundtable brings together the entire beef supply chain—from producers to retailers—along with universities, NGOs, and allied industries. Its goal is not regulation, Wooten emphasized, but collaboration, shared learning, and continuous improvement.