Posted on 01/05/2017 12:03:58 AM PST by 2ndDivisionVet
FRESNO — Days after Donald Trump won the White House vowing to deport millions of people in the country illegally and fortify the Mexican border, California farmer Kevin Herman ordered nearly $600,000 in new equipment, cutting the number of workers he’ll need starting with the next harvest.
Herman, who grows figs, persimmons and almonds in the nation’s most productive farming state, said Trump’s comments pushed him to make the purchase, larger than he would have otherwise.
“No doubt about it,” Herman said. “I probably wouldn’t have spent as much or bought as much machinery as I did.”(continued)
(Excerpt) Read more at mercurynews.com ...
1 tractor...
Case Quadtrac triangular caterpillar tracks instead of wheels. The most powerful 15-liter engine develops 600 horsepower. A retail price is $600 000 dollars.
I would bet water rights are higher on their priority list. If I owned a farm in a desert that depended on water I would anyway.
Fruits and nuts...always big in California.
Give the Dems another 5 years in power and they’ll declare farming illegal in CA.
There will be a shortage of slave labor.
Hey, farmer dude, machinery won’t steal from you, bring disease or rape your daughter either.
It’s a wise investment and a win, win, win!
Farmer Herman should have taken a lesson from my late uncle who also farmed near Madera (we called it “ranching” in those days) continuing my grandfather’s operation in the ‘30s through the ‘70s. He found that the migrant farm laborers were so undependable that he formed a co-op in the late ‘40s, or early ‘50s, and purchased the first cotton picking machine in their area of the San Joaquin Valley. He ran his family operation (dairy, sorghum, cotton, etc.) his whole life with no outside labor until he took on one permanent hand in the last 10 years before he died.
He used to say that when he handed out pay to the migrant workers they would go on a binge (leaving their wives and children with nothing) and you wouldn’t see them again until they ran out of cash. He vowed he wouldn’t be a part of it any more. The co-op worked well for him and his neighbors in the post-war era.
I remember clearly the day we visited (in the late ‘40s) and he proudly showed us the valve he could open to direct water to his fields and told us about the contract they had all signed with the government to supply the farmers with water from the Central California Water District — a chain of publically financed reservoirs stretching from the high Sierra down to the valley. Those resources have been denied them (I think illegally) thanks to Nancy Pelosi and he protected snail darters.
“We’re the government and we’re here to help” — NOT.
He’d best lay low lest a hoard of libtards come running to shame him, call him racist, and sabotage his farm in the interest of fairness and decency.
These farmers who have been getting FERAL Government subsidies and skating on cheap labor, time to pay up.
Also, it would be wise for Trump to freeze prices on farm goods for the next couple years. I can see these thieves pushing all of their costs directly to the consumers and I do mean ALL.
And before anyone attacks me on running down our farm boys, I have been ranching and sitting a horse before I was in school and now I am ancient. I have never taken a FERAL Government hand out and managed to make it on my own without the aid of wetback labor.
How can you call it "Slave Labor"? They can walk off the job and return home the same way they arrived. They can probably "turn themselves in" and get free bus tickets home.
bmfl
“He found that the migrant farm laborers were so undependable...”
Mrs. panax and I managed a 100+ acre apple orchard during the mid-80’s in north-central WA state and found the exact opposite. Out of our crew of 30 it was the Mexicans that were the most dependable and hardest workers we had. We looked forward to their return every year.
Transient hippies, aka ‘fruit tramps’ and local whites would work a few days, ask for a draw and then disappear. The Mexicans would stay until the last apple was picked, they never complained or ever gave us any trouble.
One family was making over $1000 a day. They owned a ranch on the gulf of Mexico where they all lived in the winter. During the winter months, while we were pruning trees in 20 degree weather they were taking tourists out fishing on their charter boats and basking in the sun, counting their money. You don’t know how many times we asked each other why people called them “stupid lazy Mexicans”. Ha!
I hope he bought American!
Sounds very positive to me. Automation and technological advancement beats illegal aliens, their social costs, and slave labor. This should have happened a long time ago.
I hope there is a work around and/or Huy Fong Foods didn’t employ illegals. p>Double the price of Sriracha if they must. Anything to keep the flow of Jalapenos to the their factory.
Slavery is cheap and hinders advancement. There are several great books on the revolution of farm technology and the increased farm harvests after the South lost the war.
The last time we had a large mass deportation was under Eisenhower's operation wetback. A mechanical tomato harvester was invented and under production in California within mere months. Any tomato farmer who didn't have one within two years was no longer in business.
Years ago, I toured a production facility which made mechanical tomato harvesters. They were surprisingly simple: bins with parts for each stage of assembly and mostly outdoors in a fenced in area which was covered with canvas canopies. The owner explained that the purpose of the canopies was more to protect the assembly crew from the sun than the machinery from the rain.
Mechanization...it works
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