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A drought of farm labor
Christian Science Monitor ^ | 12/2/5 | Daniel B. Wood

Posted on 12/02/2005 4:53:42 AM PST by Crackingham

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To: BeHoldAPaleHorse
It'll be about the same level of squalor as you see today with illegal immigrant encampments, but at least it will be ALL-AMERICAN squalor.

Squalor is as squalor does. Hutterites don't let their kids form vicious street gangs that clog the court dockets. And they don't rely on welfare. The complaints I've heard about Hutterites are:

1) Sometimes their kids come into stores and shoplift felt-tip markers from stationary stores.

2) They don't smell too good.

3) They produce crops and livestock so efficiently that it makes it hard on the other farmers.

101 posted on 12/02/2005 3:08:51 PM PST by Dan Evans
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To: Dan Evans

"Hutterites don't let their kids form vicious street gangs that clog the court dockets."

They practice the 11th Commandment from my time in the Army.


102 posted on 12/02/2005 3:10:47 PM PST by BeHoldAPaleHorse (MORE COWBELL! MORE COWBELL! (CLANK-CLANK-CLANK))
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To: Wolfie
Its the Law of Supply and Demand. Pay more until legal workers will take the job.

Or maybe take another look at the welfare system. There are far too many able-bodied people waiting for government checks each month who could be doing this work.

103 posted on 12/02/2005 3:12:53 PM PST by Bernard Marx (Don't make the mistake of interpreting my Civility as Servility)
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To: tiki

Prices, prices, prices. I've seen a grocery chain "dump" a supplier because another supplier furnished the same product for $00.01 less. Mother Nature is a tough nut to work with when it comes to agriculture plowing, fertilizing, debugging, demolding, picking and getting it to market while the product is still in prime condition. Grocery stores are good sources to sell the product, but make sure there is a season contract, cause next year, with the price of fertilizer, insecticide, cost of water all goes up. Transportation is a factor a lot of people do not think of. With the price of petroleum fluxuating up and down, so do the price of plastic and lettering fluzuate, all part of the equation of the food you purchase. The price of sand and transportation to make glass to hold your food. I can go on and on about the cost of agriculture and all that goes into the food chain that eventually ends up in our homes.


104 posted on 12/02/2005 3:16:47 PM PST by tillacum (MERRY CHRISTMANS ONE AND ALL. THE BIRTHDAY OF JESUS CHRIST, THE TEACHER)
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To: Dan Evans
So why would tomato growers use a toxic defoliant and poison their customers? In

They won't, and EPA rules that are set for each and every chemical err on the side of caution, sooooo, what that means is that as long as the strict controls on the defoliant are there, the defoliants probably won't be used or won't work well in the amounts that are used, and the tomatoes will have to be harvested by hand.

105 posted on 12/02/2005 5:09:24 PM PST by hispanarepublicana (Chuck Cooperstein is a tool.)
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To: junta
The WGA is not exactly a poor mom and pop type operation, from what I understand their members are big money.

Google "Diamonds And Doom-Mongering" and you will find the answer!
106 posted on 12/02/2005 5:11:33 PM PST by fallujah-nuker (America needs more SAC and less empty sacs.)
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To: BeHoldAPaleHorse

I don't, and many other do not as well.


107 posted on 12/02/2005 5:17:38 PM PST by TXBSAFH ("I would rather be a free man in my grave then living as a puppet or a slave." - Jimmy Cliff)
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To: hispanarepublicana
They won't, and EPA rules that are set for each and every chemical err on the side of caution, sooooo, what that means is that as long as the strict controls on the defoliant are there, the defoliants probably won't be used or won't work well in the amounts that are used

Wait a minute. What about these herbicide resistant crops that are supposed to make it easy to spray for weeds? You can't tell me that Monsanto spent all that money to develop these strains when they knew it the EPA wouldn't a herbicide to be used.

108 posted on 12/02/2005 6:22:25 PM PST by Dan Evans
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To: BeHoldAPaleHorse
They practice the 11th Commandment from my time in the Army.

Huh?

109 posted on 12/02/2005 6:23:22 PM PST by Dan Evans
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To: Dan Evans

I don't think that herbicide resistant tomatoes or any produce item are out there yet. Just cotton and soybeans so far, I think.
Besides all that, a herbicide is not the same as a defoliant.


110 posted on 12/02/2005 6:59:24 PM PST by hispanarepublicana (Chuck Cooperstein is a tool.)
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To: TXBSAFH

"I don't, and many other do not as well."

1. Define "many."

2. Many people oppose or support something in the abstract, because it's not personally inconvenient at that point. When real action is required, and that action is too personally inconvenient, they'll flip like pancakes.


111 posted on 12/02/2005 7:55:14 PM PST by BeHoldAPaleHorse (MORE COWBELL! MORE COWBELL! (CLANK-CLANK-CLANK))
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To: moonshine mike
how much are americans willing to pay for tomatoes?

Or lettuce?

112 posted on 12/02/2005 7:59:46 PM PST by Brad’s Gramma (HiJinx! How old ARE you?)
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To: hispanarepublicana
I don't think that herbicide resistant tomatoes or any produce item are out there yet.

They wouldn't have to be. They would already be grown when they are sprayed. After the foliage falls off, they would be picked by machine.

Besides, most of the tomatoes we eat are picked by machine already without defoliants:

"The harvest of process tomatoes is completely mechanized, requiring minimal human labor to operate the machinery. Even global positioning systems (GPS) are being used by some growers to perfect field operations.

"Just in California alone, an average 10.8 million tons of process tomatoes -- 95 percent of the country s supply -- are grown each year. Add in the rest of the process crop from about a half dozen Midwestern and Northeastern states, and you have a harvest with an average annual worth of $500 million."

http://www.paradisetomato.com/NewsEventDetail.asp?id=11&type=0

113 posted on 12/02/2005 8:59:11 PM PST by Dan Evans
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To: BeHoldAPaleHorse
Many people oppose or support something in the abstract, because it's not personally inconvenient at that point.

People have put up with long inconvenient lines at the airport for the sake of security. I would think they will pay a little more for produce for the sake of national security.

114 posted on 12/02/2005 9:04:36 PM PST by Dan Evans
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To: Dan Evans

"People have put up with long inconvenient lines at the airport for the sake of security."

Only if they absolutely have to--witness the present financial woes of the airline industry.

People fly relatively little compared to how often they eat.


115 posted on 12/02/2005 10:24:46 PM PST by BeHoldAPaleHorse (MORE COWBELL! MORE COWBELL! (CLANK-CLANK-CLANK))
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To: BeHoldAPaleHorse
People fly relatively little compared to how often they eat.

But there are choices in what you can eat. We can buy things that aren't labor intensive. You don't need tomatoes in every salad.

You might see some people carping about some high prices, but it isn't going to provoke a riot in the streets. Give us some credit. We suffered from gas prices almost double for years during the 70's.

What are you saying, that the nation is going to fly apart if produce prices rise? C'mon.

116 posted on 12/02/2005 10:36:26 PM PST by Dan Evans
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To: Dan Evans

"You might see some people carping about some high prices, but it isn't going to provoke a riot in the streets."

It's not just going to be the price of tomatoes. It's going to be the price of all foodstuffs.


117 posted on 12/02/2005 10:48:23 PM PST by BeHoldAPaleHorse (MORE COWBELL! MORE COWBELL! (CLANK-CLANK-CLANK))
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To: fatrat
That would be interesting. A mechanical tomato picker. (It didn't work with the tobacco harvest, either.). Stoop labor is stoop labor. As long as there is a way to get by without it, few will bend their backs and work.

It is the more attractive alternatives which lead to the lack of workers.

118 posted on 12/02/2005 10:54:12 PM PST by Smokin' Joe (How often God must weep at humans' folly.)
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To: Dan Evans
Besides, most of the tomatoes we eat are picked by machine already without defoliants:

Picked green. If you can't taste the difference between these and vine ripened, you have never had a tomato.

119 posted on 12/02/2005 11:09:31 PM PST by Smokin' Joe (How often God must weep at humans' folly.)
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To: tiki

NO! I despise hucksters and libelists though.


120 posted on 12/03/2005 4:30:50 AM PST by junta (It's Jihad stupid! Or why should I tolerate those who hate me?)
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