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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsCalifornia Crops Rot as Immigration Crackdown Creates Farmworker Shortage
California Crops Rot as Immigration Crackdown Creates Farmworker ShortageChris Morris Aug 08, 2017
Vegetable prices may be going up soon, as a shortage of migrant workers is resulting in lost crops in California.
Farmers say they're having trouble hiring enough people to work during harvest season, causing some crops to rot before they can be picked. Already, the situation has triggered losses of more than $13 million in two California counties alone, according to NBC News.
The ongoing battle about U.S. immigration policies is blamed for the shortage. The vast majority of California's farm workers are foreign born, with many coming from Mexico. However, the PEW Research Center reports more Mexicans are leaving the U.S. than coming here.
http://fortune.com/2017/08/08/immigration-worker-shortage-rotting-crops/?utm_campaign=time&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_medium=social&xid=time_socialflow_twitter
HAB911
(8,911 posts)workinclasszero
(28,270 posts)that are pissed as hell because all those sweet crop picking jobs were going to undocumented workers.
I mean sunup to sundown 7 days a weeks, back breaking labor under the hot sun with a piece rate, less than minimum wages and zero bennies!
Thanks to our Dear Leader tRump for freeing up these sweet ass jobs!!!
of course.
nilesobek
(1,423 posts)But not for the insincere way you describe it. It was out of need that I had to work those jobs.
Aren't we really talking about WHICH ethnic group greedy GOP farmers in Cali want to exploit.
oasis
(49,401 posts)workinclasszero
(28,270 posts)$13 million in two California counties and counting so far. Stay tuned.
Fucking assholes.
SunSeeker
(51,659 posts)yallerdawg
(16,104 posts)Now they can start growing California fruits and vegetables, have an itinerant farm-worker base rejected by the US, and we import more fruits and vegetables from Mexico, Central and South America!
Trump plans. The entire world laughs!
bdamomma
(63,918 posts)this is all on him, stupid ass man, but then he is looking for US H 1-B visa holders to apply at his mar a lago, what a fucking jerk.
Achilleaze
(15,543 posts)You and your ignoble republican Draft-Dodger-in-Chief have full responsiblity for this FAIL.
Achilleaze
(15,543 posts)metalbot
(1,058 posts)If your business model is to not pay people enough for the work that they do, you deserve to lose your crops, and food prices should go up.
Yes, I realize that increasing food costs affect everyone, and hurt the poorest people the most, but those are the same people who are helped by rising wage pressure.
I don't see how people can support minimum wage laws, but somehow lament the fact that farmers can't find people willing to do back breaking labor for cheap.
BASE
(44 posts)Even the immigrants don't want the work. It's just too shitty for the barely over min wage pay. I read an article last year claiming 13M had gone to waste.
Pay up or deal with it.
csziggy
(34,137 posts)The day before harsh new laws came into effect, Brian Cash had 65 Hispanic men picking tomatoes. Now he has none
Ed Pilkington
Friday 14 October 2011 14.58 EDT
Brian Cash can put a figure to the cost of Alabama's new immigration law: at least $100,000. That's the value of the tomatoes he has personally ripening out in his fields and that are going unpicked because his Hispanic workforce vanished literally overnight.
For generations, Cash's family have farmed 125 acres atop the Chandler mountain, a plateau in the north of the state about nine miles long and two miles wide. It's perfect tomato-growing country the soil is sandy and rich, and the elevation provides a breeze that keeps frost at bay and allows early planting.
For four months every year he employs almost exclusively Hispanic male workers to pick the harvest. This year he had 64 men out in the fields.
Then HB56 came into effect, the new law that makes it a crime not to carry valid immigration documents and forces the police to check on anyone they suspect may be in the country illegally.
The provisions the toughest of any state in America were enforced on 28 September. By the next day Cash's workforce had dwindled to 11.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/oct/14/alabama-immigration-law-workers
Capital Flows, Contributor
May 17, 2012 @ 10:05 AM
By Benjamin Powell
To forgo a repeat of last year, when labor shortages triggered an estimated $140 million in agricultural losses, as crops rotted in the fields, officials in Georgia are now dispatching prisoners to the states farms to help harvest fruit and vegetables.
The labor shortages, which also have affected the hotel and restaurant industries, are a consequence of Georgias immigration enforcement law, HB 87, which was passed last year. As State Rep. Matt Ramsey, one of the bills authors, said at the time, Our goal is to eliminate incentives for illegal aliens to cross into our state.
Now he and others are learning: Be careful what you wish for, because you may get more than you bargained for.
Georgias law, similar to those in Alabama, Arizona and a few other states, gives police the authority to demand immigration documentation from suspects when they detain them for other possible violations. The law also makes it more difficult for businesses to hire workers and creates harsher punishments for those who employ or harbor illegal immigrants.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/realspin/2012/05/17/the-law-of-unintended-consequences-georgias-immigration-law-backfires/#1329e329492a
Yeah, no one could have ever known what could happen!
hunter
(38,325 posts)Nope, Fortune Magazine and TV reality show news-like reporting doesn't count.
GOP farmers whining about stuff is not news. They're always crying about something the mean old government did, the same government that subsidizes them and looks the other way when they abuse workers and what's left of the natural environment.
YoungDemCA
(5,714 posts)TheBlackAdder
(28,211 posts)L. Coyote
(51,129 posts)cagefreesoylentgreen
(838 posts)RobinA
(9,894 posts)Who knew, right?
Anybody with a brain who's ever once driven through an agricultural area in this country, you say? Well, that explains it...
Johonny
(20,879 posts)so they're getting what they voted for.
workinclasszero
(28,270 posts)These people vote to cut their own throats. Like all the blue collar republican voters that are committing virtual suicide.
It's really amazing what hate does to a person.
tanyev
(42,600 posts)when they go to the supermarket and food prices have skyrocketed. "Wait, whuut?"
Sunlei
(22,651 posts)Achilleaze
(15,543 posts)republicans need to show working men and women some respect.
Blue_Tires
(55,445 posts)bronxiteforever
(9,287 posts)samnsara
(17,634 posts)...yet they will bitch and moan about the loss of American jobs and the high cost of okra.
Clarity2
(1,009 posts)surrounded by farms...literally right down the road, and viewable from my property.
This is my take: I'm not seeing laborers working the farms most days, and when I do, it's very few.
This is concerning to me in so many ways. Not only price of produce, but shortages and farmers going
belly up.
There's been a lot of "U pick" setups this year. I assume the rest of the produce is rotting on the farms
here too.
But I was forewarned about this & saw this coming. A local farmer did a piece in my town paper. He said the
americans are just not WILLING to work out in farm fields. It's a tough job picking and being in the heat/sun all day.
These also are not of late always low paying jobs. Farmers are offering more money to entice workers. It's not working.
I'm baffled by responses in comments sections online when I've tried to say this. They all seem to think farmers can
just adjust & convert to picking equipment. No, most farmers are dancing a tenuous line of staying afloat. Most don't
have the $$ for advanced equipment. And I don't know if that's even doable for most crops. Fruit/nut trees maybe, but not low lying plants.
Trump has continually set policies that are destroying our country & they refuse to even take notice of the consequences,
which is the mentality of a psychopath.
B2G
(9,766 posts)marybourg
(12,634 posts)to ensure a steady supply. And outsource the housing of these inmates to publican donors to ensure constant lobbying for ensuring a steady supply of inmates. See how it all fits together. Someone else can pick up on the low wage, expensive college education parts of the supply chain.
B2G
(9,766 posts)What precludes the agricultural industry from participating?
Isn't it better than rotting vegetables?