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Can U.S. Farm Workers Be Replaced by Machines?
Center for Immigration Studies ^ | 22 February 2024 | Philip Martin

Posted on 02/28/2024 9:25:24 PM PST by zeestephen

Philip Martin is Professor Emeritus of Agricultural and Resource Economics at the University of California at Davis...Long essay, but should be of interest to anyone in the food business, and of interest to any general readers who wonder how dinner gets to the dinner table.

(Excerpt) Read more at cis.org ...


TOPICS: Chit/Chat
KEYWORDS: ageconomics; agriculture; braceros; farmers; farmworkers; fwma; h2a; irca
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To: zeestephen
Today, farmers mechanize tasks when the cost of machine services is cheaper than hand labor.

Farmers only pay a fraction of the real cost of illegal labor. The illegals clog the emergency rooms, schools, jails, section 8 housing at no cost to the farmer or the illegal. There is about one Demonrat-voting government clock puncher on the taxpayer dime per lettuce picker. These same clock punchers are now in charge of and actively stealing elections to keep their customer base jumping the Rio Grande.

21 posted on 02/28/2024 10:31:14 PM PST by Reeses
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To: ProtectOurFreedom

Some crops are just too fragile to use mechanical reapers for. Nuts?

They are tough.

Apples bruise easily and will bruise and rot if knocked to the ground.

And there’s more than just harvesting the crop. Growing, making decisions, disease and pest control, nutrient requirements, etc.


22 posted on 02/28/2024 10:36:17 PM PST by metmom (He who testifies to these things says, “Surely I am coming soon.” Amen. Come, Lord Jesus…)
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To: srmanuel
Our apples are all hand picked.

Nice ones go to the stand, regular ones go to the store, damaged to the mill to be turned into cider.

You can shake them off the tree but they will all be bruised and you can not sell a bruised apple for fifty cents no matter how you polish it. With cider by the time you pay for press time and the bottles you are just about breaking even.

23 posted on 02/28/2024 10:43:18 PM PST by Harmless Teddy Bear ( Roses are red, Violets are blue, I love being on the government watch list, along with all of you.)
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To: Harmless Teddy Bear

When a crop can be harvested all at once then a machine can be used especially when when the condition of the crop does not matter things like corn, wheat or many other grains, huge combines are used but vegetables and fruits I don’t see how a machine could do that


24 posted on 02/28/2024 10:46:43 PM PST by srmanuel ( )
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To: zeestephen

thx for the post.

informative and concise, engineering, agricultural and historical/political facts are marshaled and organized with clarity and common sense. kudos to the author.


25 posted on 02/28/2024 10:56:55 PM PST by dadfly
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To: zeestephen

This has always been the goal, in farming and in business. An employee is an expense, and expenses are bad for profits. This is taught in Economics 101.


26 posted on 02/28/2024 11:15:32 PM PST by rexthecat
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To: srmanuel
...but vegetables and fruits I don’t see how a machine could do that.

When harvesting some nut crops, machines shake the trees violently, and the nuts drop to the ground. That's one example.

27 posted on 02/28/2024 11:19:30 PM PST by rexthecat
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To: zeestephen

Machines are helpmates....Nothing will replace the farmer.


28 posted on 02/28/2024 11:31:06 PM PST by Sacajaweau
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To: rexthecat

I can see that, nuts have a hard shell and would not be hurt by falling to the ground, I grew up in a farming community, the two cash crops were watermelons and tobacco.

I can see a machine picking tobacco, watermelons would be tough because they don’t all ripen at the same time, I can machines used in watermelons for loading them into trucks after they are picked would be hard for a machine to do.


29 posted on 02/29/2024 12:13:47 AM PST by srmanuel ( )
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To: zeestephen

Machines won’t P & D in the fields, which will make buying fresh vegetables a lot safer.


30 posted on 02/29/2024 12:18:53 AM PST by Chad C. Mulligan
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To: Regulator

I did the inflation calculation on the grape picker wage Chavez negotiated in 1966...

Old Wage - $1.25 (1966) - $11.94 (2023)

Chavez Wage - $1.75 (1966) - $16.72 (2023)


31 posted on 02/29/2024 1:06:32 AM PST by zeestephen (Trump "Lost" By 43,000 Votes - Spread Across Three States - GA, WI, AZ)
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To: zeestephen

Sure they can. Check out the farms that are automated in circles with the machine that plants, waters. I am not sure how it harvests or if that was by another machine but I never saw a person any time I passed by which was very frequent when I lived near by. Just saw various stages of growth, harvested.


32 posted on 02/29/2024 1:41:36 AM PST by b4me
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To: jcon40

actually there are machines that could protect the border. lead pellet dispensers.


33 posted on 02/29/2024 2:00:41 AM PST by Qwapisking ("IF the Second goes first the First goes second" L.Star )
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To: zeestephen

Every single job will be taken over by automation and AI.

And then we who are considered ‘excess people’ will be slaughtered by the billions, probably by an engineered 99.9% fatal disease.


34 posted on 02/29/2024 2:02:31 AM PST by Lazamataz (Laz 2005: "First, we beat the Soviet Union. Then we became them.")
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To: Harmless Teddy Bear
You can shake them off the tree but they will all be bruised and you can not sell a bruised apple for fifty cents no matter how you polish it.

When the WEF-engineered famine hits, you will be able to sell a bruised apple for $5,000.

35 posted on 02/29/2024 2:04:54 AM PST by Lazamataz (Laz 2005: "First, we beat the Soviet Union. Then we became them.")
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To: Fai Mao

We will all die, alone and freezing, in the dark, hated by our brothers.


36 posted on 02/29/2024 2:05:36 AM PST by Lazamataz (Laz 2005: "First, we beat the Soviet Union. Then we became them.")
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To: zeestephen

It is pointless to exist. The insufferable ennui of the drudgery of simple existence destroys, like a cancer in my heart, the shallow vanity of life. All that I ever do, all that I ever think, speak, or see: my life, my dreams, my hopes, my fears, my emotions, they all have no meaning, or effect, or hope, whatsoever. A lifetime of screwing things up — no more important than if I had succeeded in all my efforts — both without meaning and without purpose. The wisps and cobwebs of this temporary reality have falsely proclaimed themselves as real, and in it’s doing, destroyed all they touched.


37 posted on 02/29/2024 2:07:40 AM PST by Lazamataz (Laz 2005: "First, we beat the Soviet Union. Then we became them.")
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To: Scrambler Bob

I realize that life is a constant series of disappointments, crushing defeats, petty revenges, upheavals and routs, loathed outcomes manifested, horrifying choices, antagonism and misery, lonely torment, anxiety and despair, a despondent sorrow that cannot break. Life is the darkness that only death itself can quench. The pain of existing outweighs the anguish of angst-ridden desolation in all ways.


38 posted on 02/29/2024 2:08:14 AM PST by Lazamataz (Laz 2005: "First, we beat the Soviet Union. Then we became them.")
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To: TigersEye

No matter how HORRIFYINGLY PAINFULLY TRAGICALLY AWFUL it really is, it is a MILLION times worse. Then things get *really* tough. After that, HORRIBLE things happen, and then we REALLY get screwed. Immediately following that, the BOTTOM drops out and we are all DEAD, and THEN things get HARD! Once that happens, it signifies the TOTAL collapse of EVERYTHING, and that’s when the CATASTROPHE starts! It’s the sign of the end of EVERYTHING, but after that, comes the TRAGEDY. Then times get DIFFICULT, and things get WORSE, until it’s EXCRUCIATING, but that’s just the beginning, because after that it’s all PAIN.


39 posted on 02/29/2024 2:08:51 AM PST by Lazamataz (Laz 2005: "First, we beat the Soviet Union. Then we became them.")
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To: zeestephen

Yes, but powered by what, and maintained by whom?


40 posted on 02/29/2024 2:38:01 AM PST by HKMk23 (https://youtu.be/LTseTg48568)
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