Although agriculture is one of the nation's most hazardousindustries, about half of all states allow agricultural employersto provide little or no workers' compensation coverage for migrantand seasonal farmworkers.

Many states do not require agricultural employers to provideworkers' compensation coverage for migrant and seasonalfarmworkers. The states are almost evenly split between those thatprovide all or most migrant and seasonal farmworkers with workers'compensation coverage and those that require little or no coveragefor this workforce.

Specifically, only 13 states, the District of Columbia, PuertoRico and the Virgin Islands require employers to cover seasonalagricultural workers to the same extent as all other workers. Thesejurisdictions are: Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, theDistrict of Columbia, Hawaii, Idaho, Massachusetts, Minnesota,Montana, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Ohio, Oregon, Puerto Rico andthe Virgin Islands. In an additional 13 states (including Floridaand New York), only small farmers are exempt from providingcoverage to their migrant and seasonal farmworkers. Moreover,employers who hire legal temporary foreign workers under the H-2Avisa program are required to provide workers' compensationinsurance or equivalent benefits to their employees.