I'm not going anywhere.
"Del Monte has moved its asparagus processing from its Toppenish, Wash., plant to Peru. Seneca Foods has discontinued the processing of asparagus only at its Walla Walla facility."
"The Andean Trade Preference Act of 2002 and Washington state’s high minimum wage have both been blamed for Del Monte’s move." (And I'm sure Seneca's move as well -ETM)
Yet, according to the U.S. Constitution (Article VI), which all of our elected and appointed officials have been sworn to uphold and defend, it is the Constitution which is the “supreme law of the land” — not trade agreements or treaties that conflict with the Constitution.
I would say they were actually very lucky, there are few who can say they were able to work and raise their family in one industry, let along two generations. Things change. They can still grow in the area, because the growing season still supports crops when they are not available elsewhere, but the cannery can move. (I don't understand the business about the asparagus fields closing down, land is land, don't they need hops for beer or something?) The management may be surprosed that the move does not make as much sense downstream, since the factory will be largely mechnized anyway.
U.S. asparagus is victim of the war on drugs
After 55 years of packing Eastern Washington asparagus, the Del Monte Foods factory here moved operations to Peru last year, eliminating 365 jobs. The company said it could get asparagus cheaper and year-round there.
As the global economy churns, nearly every sector has a story about U.S. jobs landing on cheaper shores. But what happened to the U.S. asparagus industry is rare, the farmers here say, because it became a casualty of the government's war on drugs.
To reduce the flow of cocaine into the United States by encouraging farmers in Peru to grow food instead of coca, the United States in the early 1990s started to subsidize a year-round Peruvian asparagus industry, and since then U.S. processing plants have closed and hundreds of farmers have gone out of business.
"Apologies to the people affected," said David Murray, special assistant for the White House's drug policy office, "but the idea of creating alternative development, countrywide, does serve our purposes."
One result is that Americans are eating more asparagus, because it is available fresh at all times. But the growth has been in Peruvian asparagus supported by U.S. taxpayers.
"The irony is that they-didn't plow under the coke to plant asparagus in Peru," said John Bakker, executive director of the Michigan Asparagus Advisory Board. "If you look at that industry in Peru and where it's growing, it has nothing to do with coca leaf growers becoming normal farmers. Coca leaf is grown in the highlands. The asparagus is near sea level."
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1126058/posts
PING