Posted on 05/27/2012 1:02:28 PM PDT by thecodont
Skip Foppiano of Morada Produce is praying for cool weather. The San Joaquin County grower and packer is thick into cherry harvest season and is short on labor - 20 to 30 percent fewer pickers than he had last year.
If it gets too hot, his smaller-than-usual workforce won't have time to get all the cherries off the trees before they rot. Farmers across California are experiencing the same problem: Seasonal workers who have been coming for decades to help with the harvest, planting and pruning have dropped off in recent years. With immigration crackdowns, an aging Mexican population, drug wars at the border and a weakened job market in the United States, the flow of migrants has stopped and may actually have reversed, according to the Pew Hispanic Center, a nonprofit, nonpartisan public policy research firm that has been studying the trend.
"We're scrambling," Foppiano said, adding that he's also experiencing a labor shortage in Fresno, where he owns additional cherry orchards. "It's a hard time. And I'm hearing lots of other growers complaining about it."
[...]
California has yet to calculate its losses, but Bryan Little, director of labor affairs for the state's Farm Bureau Federation, said some asparagus growers have already had to disc up their fields because there weren't enough pickers.
"You would think with the unemployment rate being what it is, people here would take these jobs," Little said. "But Americans have self-selected away from this kind of work. It's not because the pay is low. It's because the work is hard.
"I thought we might have five to 10 years to fix this labor shortage problem," he said. "Now, we might not."
Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2012/05/26/BUAK1OLQ31.DTL&ao=2#ixzz1w6O8hkvj
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
Let me explain. I spoke to a crook years ago - and asked him about why he would steal from the companies he worked for... his answer was classic. He asked me if I would steal a loaf of bread to feed my starving children if that was the only way I could save their lives. I laughed at him. Then asked him, 'you're in trouble for stealing bread to feed your children?". He glared at me. I said, "you're in trouble for stealing a bunch of high end cars"... and he said, 'it's the same'.
Well, it's not the same.
And government checks going to legitimate places is not the same as us supporting half the inner cities with permanent disability checks for folks whose disability is they like playing baby ( this is a true story - you might be able to google it) with a girlfriend who also is 'disabled' because she likes to treat her 40 year old boyfriend like he's a baby... It's sexual kink stuff - but the rest of us will be supporting them for life - and they make more than many people who worked their whole lives at lower pay.
Helping kids go to college morphed into private schools 'teaching' beauty classes that no one has to attend - everyone gets a check - and when the bill comes due - liberal elites act like we want to stop helping kids go to college.
Scammers know how to milk the system. It's not the same as stealing bread to feed starving children - it's stealing high end cars to feed a drug habits and large lifestyles. That's what many of us object to... and it's not just the money - it's what that kind of money does to corrupt people ... to create dependent people who lack any self respect. If the money made these people better, happier, or something positive - it would be some justification... but it doesn't. It causes harm. Undermines things that are healthy...
Look at California, who shuts off water to some of the most productive land in the country unless they're trying to cause the price of food to go up? They want the crops to go unharvested to less will be grown next year, it drives up food prices which just cries out for Federal regulation of food distribution to ensure "fairness". Besides, why let food go to where people are buying it rather than where the Fascist Democrats want it to go?
“Maybe asparagus shouldn’t be grown in America”
It won’t be grown in America, unfortunately.
Mexican asperagus was in the store two months before the US asparagus for 99 cents per pound. No one was buying because it’s from Mexico. Now the US aperagus is out for $1.99/lb. No one is buying because it’s “too expensive”.
Yep, he's disabled, and you're supporting him... how do you like them apples? If you listen to his tapes - he sounds convincing... the ‘disabled’ part comes in the last tape... I think he was traumatized by his lifestyle - even though he brags about it... anyhow, it's on your dime.
My teenagers have already started baling hay this summer. (Anyone here have a clue what that is like?) So far they have started at $10 an hour and worked so hard the two boys have recently been paid $13 an hour. Correct me if I’m wrong, but aren’t 50% of black teens unemployed. If it’s good enough for my boys, it’s good enough for everyone. Pay a decent wage, and they will come.
Getting farm labor has always been hard, I don’t know how many times we have hired guys who quit in less than a week because the work is too hard.
I am a woman and I have done all that hard work that they couldn’t do so I know we’re not asking that much and we have always offered a fair wage.
The only people around here who choose full time farm jobs over welfare and food stamps and a little seasonal work are the older guys from the 1986 amnesty.
Liberal morons. They’re giving the illegals direct welfare payments, food stamps, subsidized housing, free medical care, and free education. Why on earth would they pick cherries in the hot sun?
permanent disability checks for folks whose disability is they like playing baby ( this is a true story - you might be able to google it) with a girlfriend who also is ‘disabled’ because she likes to treat her 40 year old boyfriend like he’s a baby...
I remember reading somewhere that the guy threatened suicide if they cut out his benefits. Based on this, the problem seems self correcting.
send in the National Guard and conscript the unemployed and pay them minimum wage. Anyone who fails to perform loses the job and unemployment benefits - what a great idea elpadre!!!!
Perfect opportunity for agricultural labor unions to deliver on their promises by recruiting eager hands from California’s unemployed.
I do. Back in my day, we were paid 10 cents a bale. It’s hard work, but rewarding physically and mentally. You know you earned it!!
I don't know what all types of 'maters they can use this on, but they've been using these around here for canning tomatoes for a few years now. They still hand-pick a couple of times before they use this thing. But they need way less than half of the workers they used to need
Scandinavian, British, Irish, German, other European backpackers help pick the crops in Australia. And there are plenty of poor Americans who’d be willing to if they weren’t threatened by ‘immigrants’ that those jobs ‘belong’ to them.
said some asparagus growers have already had to disc up their fields because there weren’t enough pickers.
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That’s an odd thing to do. Doesn’t asparagus have to produce ferns to chlorophyll the (rhizomatic?) roots for next years’ crop?
Do they mean they’re switching from asparagus to some other crop? Even odder as it takes 2-3 years to get asparagus crowns producing a harvestable crop.
I know how farm labor works. They have usually have a labor manager (Spanish speaking from Mexico) and jobs are filled by word of mouth - who they know and who the other workers know. So it is an inbred, foreign and usually, illegal, workforce. They don’t worry much about legal workplace practices for the illegals, either. It’s called building your house on sand.
We have a local farmer who has his house built on local people who he trains. He’s got a lot of help this summer because jobs are not as plentiful for young people and he has the local network to draw them in.
I bet Fly By Night Lawn and Landscaping compaines have no immigrant legal or otherise labor shortages nor a lot of factories for that matter.
M.R.
Unions forced factories to innovate with machinery OR move overseas. The same is happening with farming... when that's complete, dependent liberals will complain there are no jobs...
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