It is detasselling season in Iowa. Detasselling is a critical process in hybrid seed production. Hybrid seed is critical to Midwest corn production. Detasselling in Iowa is heavily dependent upon immigrant labor.

During detasseling season, Iowa utilizes 8,000 to 10,000 hours per day of immigrant labor on H-2A visas in crop production The exact numbers for any year can be compiled from public data at the U.S. Department of Labor. That is 1,000 to 1,250 workers per day. Adding in other immigrants, whether documented or undocumented, immigrant detasseling labor might reasonably be double that.

ICE has arrested over 450 people in Iowa since President Trump has taken office. That is over 50% more than in all of 2024. An active intervention by ICE during detasselling season could decimate the immigrant labor supply needed to complete the task, regardless of immigrant status. This isn’t far-fetched. Farms all over California, Florida, and Texas are reporting that immigrant labor is not coming to work due to of fear of ICE.

If the average detasseller covers about 2 acres a day, ICE could prevent 4,000 to 5,000 acres of seed corn per day from being detasseled. Over a ten-day season, that is 40,000 to 50,000 acres of seed corn fields that won’t produce useable hybrid seed. That seed won’t be there for farmers to plant next year.

At 30-50 bushel of seed per acre, this could cut 1.2 million to 2.5 million bushels of seed from the available supply in 2026. At 2.5 planted acres per bushel of seed, this is 3.0 to 6.25 million acres of Iowa’s anticipated corn acreage that will not have seed. That’s 25% to 50% of anticipated Iowa corn acreage in 2026.