Farmworkers are 35x more likely to die from heat than any other occupation, yet there is still no federal heat safety standard — OSHA's proposed rule has been in development since 2021

Agricultural workers in the United States are 35 times more likely to die from heat-related stress than workers in any other industry. Heat exposure kills an estimated 2,000 workers per year nationwide, and these deaths are known to be severely undercounted because heat illness symptoms mimic other conditions and coroners in rural areas often lack training to identify heat as the cause of death. The workers most at risk are H-2A visa holders who are contractually obligated to work for a specific employer during the hottest months: over a quarter of H-2A farmworkers in Arizona, Georgia, New Mexico, and Texas work during months when the average temperature exceeds 90 degrees Fahrenheit. Despite decades of documented deaths, there is no federal standard requiring employers to provide water, shade, rest breaks, or acclimatization periods for outdoor workers in heat. OSHA published a proposed rule in August 2024, received over 43,000 public comments, held hearings through July 2025, and as of early 2026 has still not finalized the standard. In the absence of a federal rule, only California, Washington, Oregon, and a handful of other states have their own heat standards, leaving farmworkers in the Deep South and Southwest — where heat is most extreme — with no enforceable protections. The human cost is concrete and personal. Juan Jose Ceballos, 33, died of heatstroke on July 6, 2024, in Wayne County, North Carolina, where the heat index reached 108 degrees. He was one of at least 15 workers who have died from heat in North Carolina since 2008. Pregnant farmworkers face elevated risks: heat exposure during pregnancy is linked to preterm birth, low birth weight, and stillbirth, and one-third of U.S. farmworkers are women. This persists because agricultural industry lobbying groups oppose mandatory heat standards, arguing they impose inflexible requirements on diverse farming operations. OSHA itself is chronically underfunded — it would take the agency 165 years to inspect every workplace in the U.S. once. The rulemaking process is deliberately slow by design, requiring economic impact analyses, small business reviews, and multiple public comment periods. Each administration change resets priorities. Workers die in the gap between "proposed" and "final."