Take a look inside one of the United States’ most essential – and least understood – labor systems at Nevada’s Peri & Sons Farm.
The H-2A program provides a legal pathway for US farmers and ranchers to hire foreign guest workers for seasonal agriculture jobs, helping keep food on tables across the country. As Nevada’s largest H-2A employer, Peri & Sons Farm relies on more than 2500 H-2A workers each year to plant, grow and harvest its crops. In this film, hear directly from the farm’s owners and legal experts, as well as the H-2A workers themselves, as they share firsthand perspectives on the on the benefits, challenges, and opportunities associated with the H-2A program in Nevada.
Produced by the Hitchcock Project for Visualizing Science in the Reynolds School of Journalism at the University of Nevada, Reno, in collaboration with the University of Nevada, Reno Extension.
Video by Vanesa de la Cruz Pavas and Kelsey Fitzgerald.
Narrated by Loretta Singletary.
**
Image citations:
3:55: The Number of H-2A jobs certified increased more than sevenfold from 2005 to 2022
Castillo, M. (2023, March 13). H2A temporary agricultural job certifications continued to soar in 2022. Amber Waves. U.S. Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service.
4:12 H-2A jobs and H-2A share of total hired labor expenditures, fiscal year 2020
Castillo, M., Martin, P. & Rutledge, Z. (2022, August 30). The H-2A temporary agricultural worker program in 2020 (EIB-238). U.S. Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service.
4:33 Beneficiaries Approved – by Top 100 H2A Employers
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (n.d.). H2A employer datahub.
5:00 H-2A Visas Issued: 1992–2023
Gutiérrez-Li, A. (2024, July 19). Feeding America: How immigrants sustain US agriculture. Baker Institute.
Funding and Support
This documentary was made possible through Extension’s Improving Drought Communication in Nevada project, supported by the USDA-NIFA Smith-Lever Grant Award #2021-41210-35176.
An EEO/AA institution.
Copyright 2026, University of Nevada Extension
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, modified, published, transmitted, used, displayed, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording or otherwise without the prior written permission of the publisher and authoring agency.
Publication number:
AV-26-01
source