A drought of farm labor

Christian Science Monitor ^ | 12/2/5 | Daniel B. Wood

[Smokin' Joe]

To: Smokin' Joe

Stoop labor is stoop labor. As long as there is a way to get by without it, few will bend their backs and work.

Millions of Americans grow their own tomatoes and often they have such a surplus that they bring them to work and give them away to their friends. Don't think that everyone is just like you.

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The way I read your remark, it implied that I was lazy. Hardly. NO one who knows me would ever accuse me of that.

As for stoop labor, most anyone who does not have a religious reason (as the Hutterites and Amish do), given an alternative, will not willingly spend their lives bent over in a field harvesting crops. It is tough on the body, hard, demanding work, which eventually causes medical problems for most people.

People will do it for a source of money in hard times, but only as long as they need to in order to find better (easier) work.

The logical conclusion is that you think you are one of the noble few.

Again, I must ask WTF? What "noble few?"

Yep, I have done stoop labor, and heavy construction, and have a college degree, 12 grandkids, and work in the oil field--as a geologist. When I do stoop labor now, it is because I want to, not to make a living. But I must reiterate, there is a big difference between tilling your garden as a hobby, and cutting tobacco or harvesting tomatoes for a living.

While many people do the former, often as an escape from the contrived stresses of their 'normal' job, they would shrink from the latter as a means of making a living for less physical alternatives.

Farming today is in great contrast with the farming of my youth. Mechanization has made a difference, that is why farmers where I live now can farm 14 or more square miles of wheat on a family farm.

But I have a hint for you: they do not harvest it by hand. They do not use horses to pull the swather.

The equipment used here to till the soil, plant, and harvest could not be turned around in the tobacco fields I grew up around in Maryland.

As for Amish and Hutterites being typical cases, How do you know? Most of the common people in this country do not make a lot of noise and they don't get a lot of press. Amish and Hutterites are the more famous of the fundamentalist Christians because they don't blend in. And where would you meet them anyway? Not in a bar. People like that tend to keep to themselves.

Any farming operation which is atypical will draw attention in farming country. There is a Hutterite colony north of Chester, Montana, and I believe they are the closest of either denomination. There is one heck of a lot of farm and ranch land between here and there which is not farmed by Amish or Hutterites. So, no, hardly "typical".

A lot of people are set in their ways and do not think in terms of upward mobility. If they are accustomed to hard work, they will do it rather than have their lives disrupted by modernization.

Ri-ight. That is why so many people who have done stoop labor all their lives have scrimped and saved and sent their kids to college. Just so they would not have upward mobility. /sarc

I think you mistake their determination to provide opportunities for their children (that they did not have) for a lack of vision. They had vision, but it was for the next generation. (It is pretty tough to spend the day in the fields and go to night school, and this was before the GED. )

Doubtless that is a motivating factor for many of the illegals as well. They may lack the desire, literacy, or need to fill out the paperwork, but they want better for themselves and their children.

As for Americans taking up the yoke and doing the jobs illegals have been doing, sure, that could happen. But as long as the cheaper, easier alternatives exist, it probably won't.

Americans, as a rule have become fat, lazy, and complacent. We are generally pretty satisfied with our lot in life, or are leaching off of those who are. I'm not saying we don't have gripes, just that we are a long way from living in a mud hut on average, and relatively content. Only a relative few have the motivation to follow anything but the path of least resistance in life.

If you have not had the opportunity to observe that, you ain't been around.

[Harmless Teddy Bear]

I know a man who almost completely automated his dairy herd.

The heifers have been trained to walk into the automatic milking station when their udder feels full.

The milk is pumped directly into a sealed refrigerated tank for storage.

On a farm where normally you would have five or six employees he has one and a engineer on call in case the machine breaks.

Automation is the answer but you have to be willing to make the investment. Make manual laborers scarce enough and they will become willing.

[Dan Evans]

Sorry, my post may have been badly written, so I didn't really get across what I meant.

You accentuate the negative and ignore the positive. You have a tendency to generalize about Americans and then dismiss the exceptions to the rule as atypical.

Let me ask you this, Joe, what do you think should be done about illegal immigration? Do you think resistance is futile? Do you think WE will be assimilated?

I don't know anyone who has ever hired an illegal and all the people I know cut their own lawn. If we get rid of illegals there will be people who will grow tomatoes. Maybe not enough of them now, but eventually there will be because the economy will create enough to fill the need. How? The good Americans we are talking about, the ones you say are atypical, tend to have a lot of children. The only thing that limits their population growth is the availability of land.

When a farm neighboring a Hutterite colony goes broke, the Hutterites outbid everyone for the land. They will expand. They already produce something like 40% of the pork in South Dakota. If the meat processors go out of business because they can't hire illegals anymore, the Anabaptists will expand to fill the need.

A few decades ago, the Amish had about half their kids leave the community. Today only about 10% leave because they have gone into other industries besides farming. But they still have about six kids per family.

I think America is like a garden that will grow whatever we plant. We need to do things that will encourage the good crops and discourage the weeds. If child labor laws or property taxes are keep these people from thriving then let's address that.

I am optimistic about America. It may take some time, but I don't see the fat, lazy, complacent Americans as the future. They just don't have as many kids as the hard-working Christians like you and the Anabaptists. We are not Europeans.

[Dan Evans]

I know a man who almost completely automated his dairy herd.

I read about that a few days ago. The system was developed in Europe and is used a lot in the UK. I'm guessing that farm labor shortages are a much bigger problem over there.

[Smokin' Joe]

I confess I have been taking a dour look at the present, and not the future.

Yes, I see the exceptions as atypical, by definition, they are. However I am not without hope. Someone has to lead the way, and the people who do are the exceptions, not the rule.

Until we successfully get over hyphenation in this country, (not as a celebration of family heritage but as a separatist device aimed at forgetting that whatever comes before the hyphen, the second word is American), we have not assimilated the people already here.

Should we open our borders (or allow them to remain open) and be overrun? No. That would be national suicide.

You said:

I think America is like a garden that will grow whatever we plant. We need to do things that will encourage the good crops and discourage the weeds.

snip

I am optimistic about America. It may take some time, but I don't see the fat, lazy, complacent Americans as the future. ( emphasis mine)

Well said.

[Harmless Teddy Bear]

I have heard that they are. The problem is two fold, the first is the rise in the number of skilled jobs that are far more pleasant and rewarding both monetarily and in job satisfaction. People prefer those jobs and so gravitate toward them.

The second is that the labor pool is not expanding at the same rate as the job market. There are two places where this is hitting hard, one is in farming and one is in manufacturing. If you go to any old school plant you will get the same story, we can not hire even enough people to replace those we loose much less think about expanding.

If you go to any union plant you will find that the majority of those on the floor are past 50. There are a few where the number is as high as 90%.

They have a major problem on their hands. In ten years it is going to be a full blown crisis.

[Dan Evans]

the rise in the number of skilled jobs that are far more pleasant and rewarding both monetarily and in job satisfaction. People prefer those jobs and so gravitate toward them.

There is one other thing they gravitate to: the dole.

Europe started to import all this cheap labor because they weren't having enough babies and the population was aging. Ironically, the children of these immigrants learned that they didn't have to work because the state would support them and now they have very high unemployment.

I suspect that the same thing is going to happen here if we don't do something.