Sitting here in orchard and asparagus country we've seen that approach fail -- productivity and work quality is so low the field owners have to kick them off the field -- the business would be ruined otherwise. Plus, on any large scale, you'd have constant worker-injury type lawsuits against the owners. It just doesn't work. You can sit there at the keyboard and rant all day but no one in the industry will risk their livelihood to go along with that.
We...Americans who don’t want invaders aren’t going to tolerate illegal immigration just for the sake of cheap agricultural labor. I would willingly pay more for a potato I KNEW was illegal-immigrant-free......better that than a damned free-range chicken....
The point was to quit paying people that don't earn their keep. They get hungry enough, they'll be willing to earn their keep. Otherwise, they'll starve or get removed from the gene pool when they cross into someone's abode.
If you can't find labor you can afford to pick or tend your crop, you get a different hybrid that adapts well to mechanized handling and you buy the machines, or hire the crews with the machines.
You don't demand we supplant our native workforce with illegal aliens, and if lettuce goes to $50 a head, then it goes to $50 a head. Ever eat Whitlof? Expensive stuff Fur Shur. Enough of it to equal a head of lettuce is MORE than $50 ~ I love the stuff. Just don't eat it every day!