Posted on 12/08/2017 12:56:03 AM PST by Oshkalaboomboom
Liberals frame the debate over illegal immigration as a dilemma: either America grants amnesty to aliens or the economy will collapse. Some even imply that Americans will starve to death because of higher food prices – who will pick America's fruits and veggies if not illegals? Bruce Goldstein, president of a nonprofit called Farmworker Justice, boldly claims that if we were to deport all illegal aliens, "our agricultural system would collapse." Collapse.
This is nonsense. American agriculture will not collapse without illegal labor. Why? Because there are plenty of technological solutions and American workers available to pick up the slack. It is time to put this myth to bed.
Agriculture is not a labor-intensive industry, and it has not been for decades. Less than 2 percent of Americans work in agriculture, according to the World Bank. This figure has declined since 1960, when roughly 6 percent of Americans worked on farms. If trends continue, we can expect the number to continue to fall. This is because of the wonders of mechanization: machines now do everything from threshing wheat to milking cows. The bottom line: Most farmers do not "benefit" from cheap illegal labor, since their labor costs are minimal to begin with.
The "exceptions" to this rule are fruit and nut farms, located primarily in California. Crops like raspberries and almonds are notoriously difficult for machines to pick. There are many reasons for this, including the fact that berries require a "soft touch" – they ripen at different times, and bushes are tough for machinery to navigate. These labor-intensive farms are the main agricultural culprits when it comes to hiring illegal workers. After all, they have the most to gain.
But realistically, even labor-intensive agriculture does not depend upon illegal labor. Orchards could get by without illegal workers
(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...
I am so tired of this myth and all the hand wringing about paying a nickel extra for a head of lettuce.
Good read.
There were Americans who might have done this work in the 1960s. In today’s environment? Even if you offered $15 an hour, and needed twenty folks for four weeks of real work, I doubt that you’d get more than five or six. This is the kind of labor that you can’t easily find in this environment.
I grew up on a farm, and every year....we needed extra help for picking up hay. You’d have to offer a minimum of $10 an hour today, and it’s questionable that you’d find several kids who’d do this type of work.
Won’t have to grow food for 10-20 million illegals anyways.
Put prisoners to work.
I’d be ok with tax break for cost of supplies related to people having their own veggie garden/fruit trees. Better than tax break for kids which not everyone has. Apt dwellers can be offered roof top or assigned portions of the property with their unit if they don’t have patio/balcony to grow things on.
It will never happen.
Big government doesn’t like self sufficiency.
Freepers, this is a good story to post to your FB page and set it for public viewing. If enough people do it, it will help move the needle on public opinion, which in turn will move our do-nothing Congress to get off their butts.
Kids are not allowed by law to work on farms under 18, I think. Zero’s law.
I’m sure there are many rural people who, being unemployed, would work on a farm especially since meals are/were often included ... city dwellers not so much.
I post articles from multiple sites for free, which means I get paid as much to post as you do to make stupid comments about other people's posts.
It is reasonable to expect to have to pay more than $15/hour for hard, physical, outdoor labor that only lasts for 4 weeks.
And $10 an hour is squat today.
I grew up on a farm as well. The availability of cheap, illegal labor has corrupted farmers in that they have actually allowed their jobs to become less and less appealing over time, when the rest of the world has had to up its game. Many farms themselves have become less appealing when they should have become more so. Look at the conditions many animals are now raised in.
American students are still prime candidates to do seasonal farm labor if the opportunities are structured right.
Working on a farm is a dream for many city hipsters. Those farms who know how to position themselves right get them with no trouble at all.
Here’s an example of how organic farms get plenty of eager young city labor virtually free: https://wwoofusa.org/
That is not true.
First, the law you are talking about proposed limiting chikdren under 16 from performing some activities on farms.
Second, the law doesn’t exist because it was proposed but never became a law.
Interestingly even Al Franken spoke out against the proposed law and praised the department of labor for dropping it.
Of course normal Americans would do the work, if the wages actually cut it for them.
For many years we had Bracero’s working the cotton fields of West TX but all their work has been overtaken with machinery. Only place you’ll find illegals is in construction, oil fields, hotel industry and some fast food industries.
“there are plenty of technological solutions and American workers available to pick up the slack”
If you can’t make money doing it, stop doing it.
OR, surprise, surprise, surprise .. .
RAISE YOUR PRICES.
You don’t grow oranges in NY, and you don’t grow Apples in the Arizona desert. Maybe we’ll just continue with all these agricultural “Mohair” subsidies.
Crony lives on farms too.
Subsidizing the “Fruits & Nuts” in CA ain’t my idea of money well spent.
The “exceptions” to this rule are fruit and nut farms, located primarily in California
1 out of 3 people in California collect Welfare, every last one of them can be out in the fields picking berries for their daily bread.
“Agriculture is not a labor-intensive industry”
As a guy who owns a farm, works with farmers, talks with farmers every day, and works for a company that makes equipment for farmers to use in daily production, I have one thing to say:
This guy has uttered the most inaccurate-and-down-right-stupid statement in the history of journalism. It is so stupid it entirely discredits any other word in the article by tainting it with stupidity.
I assume by labor intensive the author means that it doesn’t require a large volume of hired labor. Farmers themselves work incredibly hard. We live in a rural area, each family farm seems to have one or two hired men. The owner labors intensely.
Contrast that to other industries, like hospitality, where high levels of hired labor are required. It’s not physically more laborious, just requires more people to do it. It’s “labor intensive “.
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