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California Crops Rot as Immigration Crackdown Creates Farmworker Shortage

Automate.

Around here, two guys in a combine and a truck can clear a field of corn in a single evening.

The only thing holding back automation in the south/southwest is the easy availability of virtually slave labor that makes the technological overhead costs for R&D uneconomical.

But those machines will start looking a whole lot more attractive now that the only alternatives are going out of business or paying some lazy American $20/hr + benefits to carry around heads of lettuce.
 
Moderate Right said:
It's all about the market. If we pay a "living wage" then prices go up. If we want cheap products in our stores and restaurants then we have to pay cheap wages or "farm" out those cheaper wages to third world countries. Your post does not really address what I said. Funny, how lefties want illegals to be paid less than a living wage and blame Trump for farmers being forced to pay a living wage to legals and Americans having to pay more for produce as a result of that. Trump has become a liberal and the liberals blast him for it.
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The problem once more is that US farmers can not just raised their prices to meet greatly increased wages without their crops finding no buyers with both consumers and middle men turning to foreign markets instead.
 
Chomsky said:
If that's how truly you feel, I can respect that. It's fine to disagree in ideology.

Yes, but illegal immigration and authoritarianism are two separate issues, though unfortunately they are conflated under Trump and his administration. Support for secure borders does not necessarily imply support for Trump and his tactics.

No one said it was.

And again, it seems you are bringing-in additional issues and conflating them. Most don't want the type of governance Trump is selling. I surely don't. Check-out my posting history. But being anti-authoritarianism and socially liberal, doesn't preclude supporting well maintained borders and immigration law.

Quite frankly, I can't imagine a country being well run, with responsive efficient governance, without having secure borders and lawful immigration. Without that, you can't even get accurate metrics of your population and demographics, in order for government to best serve it's citizens.
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I do understand your points, and my previous post was not personal, but only an answer to your previous post to me. I certainly do wish that we had a coherent and practical immigration policy, but despite the rhetoric of numerous administrations, we do not.

I simply question the power of the government to deliver on its promises, implied and otherwise, regarding illegal immigration. Given that 40 years worth of zealous enforcement of drug laws, we reached the point years ago where children bring illegal drugs into schools, and their presence inside prisons is common knowledge. I just don't see how the government can keep living creatures out when it cannot keep inanimate objects out. Hiring another 5000 border guards does not seem a solution to anything except possibly unemployment.
 
SheWolf said:
I see nothing wrong with immigration or immigrants having jobs in the United States. Trump has taken this discussion to this. It's not even about if they are legal or not. If 100% of the fruit pickers were legal and doing the work, that wouldn't matter to Trump supporters like you. You are all about America first, and that means born and bred Americans first.

The fact that this fruit is rotting doesn't even give any of pause to think how you benefit from immigrates.
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Yes. Why is that a problem?
 
SheWolf said:
Question: what is wrong with foreign people?
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Nothing. I wish them no harm, but they're not Americans. They can stay in their own country and develop their own industries. As for me, I care about Americans more than foreigners.
 
BillRM said:
The problem once more is that US farmers can not just raised their prices to meet greatly increased wages without their crops finding no buyers with both consumers and middle men turning to foreign markets instead.
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It is discriminatory to pay illegals peanuts while the left clamors for a living wage for everyone else. Many small businesses can't afford to pay living wages either but that doesn't stop liberals from wanting to force them to anyway.
 
Moderate Right said:
It is discriminatory to pay illegals peanuts while the left clamors for a living wage for everyone else. Many small businesses can't afford to pay living wages either but that doesn't stop liberals from wanting to force them to anyway.
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Not the same thing as you are not going to fly or drive to Mexico unless you live on the border due to the high prices of hamburgers at our fast foods places cause by high wage costs but you are going to end up buying foods from other nations if US farmers price themselves out to the market by paying way over the world repeat the world farm labor cost.
 
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Hawkeye10 said:
Man, who could have guessed that the majority of Americans have no interest paying the prices for food that would have to be paid to pay farmworkers appropriately for their hard work.
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Subsidies should work.
 
BillRM said:
Not the same thing as you are not going to fly or drive to Mexico unless you live on the border due to the high prices of hamburgers at our fast foods places cause by high wage costs but you are going to end up buying foods from other nations if US farmers price themselves out to the market by paying way over the world repeat the world farm labor cost.
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Of course you want to spin the fact that you are for paying illegals peanuts while wanting living wages for everyone else, which in turn drives all wages down. The Democratic party should be ashamed of themselves.
 
Seasonal farm-worker wages will need to be raised (but potatoes will cost more).
 
Moderate Right said:
Of course you want to spin the fact that you are for paying illegals peanuts while wanting living wages for everyone else, which in turn drives all wages down. The Democratic party should be ashamed of themselves.
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If I was king they would not be illegal anything and they would be allow to live and work here without the fear of ICE.

A win win situation as they would still be earning far more then they could earn at home and our farmers would not need to go out of business by the cost of production being many times more then the world cost of production.

Love this idea that poor foreign farm workers are a threat to our republic given that Americans short of being put on chain gangs would not do such work at almost any wage.

Next for myself living in an area that had have in effort open borders as far as Cubans are concern for seventy years I frankly do not see what there is to be frighten of.

In fact given that the US is not at replacement levels of births unless there continue to be large scale immigration we are going to join the other western nations where the population is getting older and older with less and less people in the work force supporting the older generations.

Those farm workers children being birth right citizens will be just one part of the solution to our low birth rate problem.
 
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Blue_State said:
Subsidies should work.
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So you would placed all the American farmers on in effect welfare and not cheap welfare as it likely to add up to hundreds of thousands dollars a year per farm family.
 
ThoughtEx. said:
Notice the last line of the quote from the article, farmers are now offering above minimum wage, with paid time off, and a 401k...
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So what? Many other jobs offer that and, more importantly, permanent (not seasonal) employment in a climate controlled facility.
 
phattonez said:
Gee, you mean a dependence on cheap foreign labor brings down wages and keeps Americans away from jobs that they otherwise could do? Isn't this what anti-immigration activists have been saying for decades? It's about time that we pick our own crops.
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Will you pick the crops? Are you brown collar or blue?
 
Thoreau72 said:
I do understand your points, and my previous post was not personal, but only an answer to your previous post to me. I certainly do wish that we had a coherent and practical immigration policy, but despite the rhetoric of numerous administrations, we do not.

I simply question the power of the government to deliver on its promises, implied and otherwise, regarding illegal immigration. Given that 40 years worth of zealous enforcement of drug laws, we reached the point years ago where children bring illegal drugs into schools, and their presence inside prisons is common knowledge. I just don't see how the government can keep living creatures out when it cannot keep inanimate objects out. Hiring another 5000 border guards does not seem a solution to anything except possibly unemployment.
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Understood. I realize this isn't personal, though we both may feel emphatic about the issue.

You are 100% right concerning drugs, and I'm all for decriminalization.

But I see illegal immigration as a separate issue. At the least, I'd like to see us make a stronger effort in securing the border. While a harsh analogy, just as we only catch half the murderers doesn't mean we allow murder. Well, just because we can't stop illegal immigration completely doesn't mean we don't give it a reasonable try.

But the other side of the coin that has me really teed-off, is why are we not mandating E-verify? It's already in place and functional. Along with putting some teeth into employer illegal hiring? Illegal hiring is the crux of the problem, because without it much of the draw would be missing.
 
ThoughtEx. said:
Immigration: California Crops Rot During Farmworker Shortage | Fortune.com

Man, who could have guessed that the majority of Americans have no interest in working on farms and that migrant labor is necessary. Or could have guessed that seasonal workers who only come up here to work in season would just stay home rather than being caught on the opposite side of the wall. It's to bad that no one mentioned what terrible ideas Trump actually has concerning immigration.

Because he's literally not done anything but open his mouth, and immigrants have started to leave. Which wouldn't you know it, is going to screw our food production right up. Who could have guessed. Oh, right, those damn elites with all their damn book learning may have mentioned something like this.

Tired of all that winning yet...
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The problem is it's backbreaking work that Americans won't do. In fact Alabama kicked out all undocumented workers. and it wasn't long before they were begging them to come.

For years, most poultry workers here were Mexican immigrants, including some who were in the country illegally. But last fall, after a tough state law against illegal immigrants took effect, many vanished overnight, rattling the town’s large Hispanic community and leaving the poultry business scrambling to find workers willing to stand for hours in a wet, chilly room, cutting up dead chickens. Nevertheless, a variety of employers in Alabama said they have not been able to find enough legal residents to replace the seasoned Hispanic field pickers, drywall hangers, landscapers and poultry workers who fled the state. There was an initial rush of job applications, they said, but many new employees quit or were let go.

Wayne Smith, 56, raises tomatoes on a family farm in the misty hills of Chandler Mountain, a 40-minute drive from Albertville. Last fall, he said, his entire Mexican crew ran off, and Smith and his neighbors scoured the area for new workers. The growers pay $2 for every large box of picked tomatoes, and a worker must be able to pluck fast all day, bent over in the hot sun, to fill two or three dozen boxes. “The whites lasted half a day, and the blacks wouldn’t come at all. The work was just too hot and hard for them,” Smith said.
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https://www.washingtonpost.com/loca.../gJQA3Rm0jV_story.html?utm_term=.aecb93334fcb
https://mic.com/articles/8272/alabama-illegal-immigrant-crackdown-destroys-farm-business#.eo41Ga14H

Farmers across the country are very concerned they won't have the help they need to produce their products.
Dairy Farmers Fear Loss Of Labor Under Trump Immigration Actions : NPR
Maine farmers worry about workers' future under Trump immigration policy - Portland Press Herald
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/arti...n-crackdown-triggers-anxiety-across-u-s-farms

So when milk, eggs, chicken, beef, fruit and vegi's skyrocket at the grocery store you'll know why.
 
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danarhea said:
Best solution? Grow your own veggies. Grow 'em right in your own yard. I've done it, and it's not as difficult as you think. One thing for certain, if you grow organically, you don't have to worry about pesticide residue and other poisons from corporate crops, and you save a few bucks to boot.
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I patented an appliance the size of a fridge that allows you to have a vegetable garden in your kitchen. Herbs and all...

Hydroponics and aeroponics systems and low temp led lights. One day i hope to sell that bitch and retire, maybe buy a boat. Like a big boat...
 
ThoughtEx. said:
I patented an appliance the size of a fridge that allows you to have a vegetable garden in your kitchen. Herbs and all...

Hydroponics and aeroponics systems and low temp led lights. One day i hope to sell that bitch and retire, maybe buy a boat. Like a big boat...
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LOL People will all use it to grow pot and you know it...:lol:
 
BillRM said:
So it is racist to point out that Americans of whatever skin color/race are on the whole not interest in such farm work at any reasonable and sustainable wages for the farmers to paid while foreign farm workers consider those same wages to be more then adequate?
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If those wages were adequate, Americans would be doing the jobs, and this "crisis" would be non-existent.

What does skin color have to do with anything?

Are you a racist?
 
Indian Giver said:
If those wages were adequate, Americans would be doing the jobs, and this "crisis" would be non-existent.

What does skin color have to do with anything?

Are you a racist?
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The ag labor and ag transportation sector in California is locked up by the Hispanics. Its very difficult for employers to hire other than Hispanic because either the employer will be forced to dismiss the non Hispanic employee or the Hispanics will make so much trouble for the employee that they find it better to get work else where.
 
PirateMk1 said:
The ag labor and ag transportation sector in California is locked up by the Hispanics. Its very difficult for employers to hire other than Hispanic because either the employer will be forced to dismiss the non Hispanic employee or the Hispanics will make so much trouble for the employee that they find it better to get work else where.
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That shouldn't be, especially if the Hispanics are illegal.

Here in L.A. I, a white male, have worked several warehouse jobs where the front office is dominated by Asians, and I am the only "gringo" out in the warehouse alongside the Hispanics.

I speak Spanish and do the grunt work right alongside my co-workers, so I can get along.

Its not ag, but why should there be a difference?

Four years ago I was one of only three English speakers working in an agricultural irrigation recycling plant in Vernon, CA - just south of downtown Los Angeles.

One of the other two was a white guy who showed me how to use the shredder inside.

The other was a black guy whom I spent a few evenings with breaking up materials with a sledgehammer.
 
Indian Giver said:
If those wages were adequate, Americans would be doing the jobs, and this "crisis" would be non-existent.

What does skin color have to do with anything?

Are you a racist?
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Am I a racist what a joke and the wages are indeed adequate in fact more then adequate for foreign farm workers just not for Americans of any race or any skin color.

That is why many foreign farm workers endure all the hardships to come over our borders to do that work in the first place.

Reality is reality no matter how must the anti emigration right wingers would like to denied it and find some way to force Americans to do the job even if it take chain gang labor.


https://thinkprogress.org/alabama-o...ration-law-scares-away-laborers-f93dacea7eeb/


Last summer in Georgia, which also passed an anti-immigra*tion law, Republican Gov. Nathan Deal started a pro*gram to offer fieldwork to probationers at minimum wage. During the first two days of the program, the pro*bationers picking cucumbers couldn’t keep up with their Latino counterparts and had all quit by mid-afternoon.

“That is why I’m em*phasizing that this is a short-term solution to get the cur*rent crops up,” McMillan said Thursday. “Then, we’ll look at the long term.”

But even short-term, it is not clear how well McMillan’s suggestion will work. Farmers have reported trouble finding Alabamians willing to do the farm work. “They don’t have the moti*vation to work,” said Kent Scott, who grows blueberries in Alabama. “(Immigrants) are willing to work. They are trying to feed their families. They’re hustling.” Even state Rep. Scott Beason, who sponsored the harshest-in-the-nation immigration law, refused a challenge to pick tomatoes just like the immigrant workers who Beason thought could be replaced. The St. Clair County farmer who challenged Beason said his family could lose $150,000 this year because they only had a quarter of the workforce they normally would during harvest.

Georgia is revising its own plan to allow inmates to work as farm laborers as farmers continue to lack the number of workers they need. And back in July, some in Georgia were amazed Alabama did not learn from their mistakes before its immigration law put its agricultural and construction industry in jeopardy. “It was like, ‘Good Lord, you people can’t be helped. Have you all not been paying attention?’” said Bryan Tolar, president of the Georgia Agribusiness Council.
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I guess in a way I should not care if American farmers go down the tube as it been three generations since anyone in my family tree had been farmers and we as a people will just buy our food from foreign nations and the current farm workers can then stay home and grow the crops in their own countries.

Of course it will not be at the same wages that American farmers had been willing and able to paid this workforce.
 
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ThoughtEx. said:
Well, I won't deny I came up with the idea while doing research into pot stores as an investment. :angel?:
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LED lights do not produce the desire growth with pot plants or so I had hear....LOL.
 
BillRM said:
Not the same thing as you are not going to fly or drive to Mexico unless you live on the border due to the high prices of hamburgers at our fast foods places cause by high wage costs but you are going to end up buying foods from other nations if US farmers price themselves out to the market by paying way over the world repeat the world farm labor cost.
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Sure it is the same thing. Yet again the left is full to total hypocrisy. They spout off a bunch of liberal crap to pander for votes and then they do absolutely nothing to back up their pandering. They want a living wage. They don't want to discriminate. Then they turn around and discriminate against undocumented immigrants and are perfectly fine with them not being paid a living wage (in liberal California no less) after they accepted those hispanic votes. Then they have the nerve to spin it, saying that it's not the same thing.
 
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