LOS ANGELES — In a move that is sure to have the agricultural industry grimacing and labor-rights advocates cheering, the Labor Department is reversing a Bush administration rule that allowed farmers an easier path to hiring temporary or seasonal foreign workers.

The department has issued new regulations that will force growers to make more of an effort to find Americans to fill these jobs of picking crops and other harvest-time roles, as well as increase pay and provide more job-safety protections for the thousands of foreign farm workers who are hired.

The old rule, which affected the H-2A guest-worker program, was adopted just before President George W. Bush left office. The Labor Department suspended that regulation in May 2009.

The new rule, slated to begin March 15, will increase the average pay for temporary farm workers by nearly a dollar per hour. Farmers also will be required to list their job openings on a new online job registry, while state work-force agencies must inspect worker housing before employers can get the nod to hire foreign laborers.

Department officials said Thursday the changes were designed to protect agriculture's most at-risk workers.

The Bush-era rule, which let employers hire foreign workers if they couldn't find Americans to fill the jobs, sparked a fierce battle across the country's farmlands. Labor advocacy groups railed against the rule for slashing wages and eradicating many key worker protections, such as sanitary housing and safety issues.

Farmers have said they need help easing the hurdles to bring in foreign workers to harvest crops — jobs, they say, domestic workers don't want.