Thread: Keep calling on Feinsteins "Emergency Agricultural Wor

I can sort of understand Feinstein's position. Her well to do farmers are complaining that the crops will wither or rot if there is no one to pick them. The previous 'farmworkers' have scrambled off to be window washers, warehousemen, hotel maids, construction workers. Anything but backbreaking work under a hot, California sun. What's a senator from a state with a long, glorious agricultural tradition to do?

D--n it. These farmworkers have been tying us in a knot for the last thirty years. They sued to stop the agricultural technology programs (UFW and CA Rural Legal Assistance v UC Davis) Now US farmers must compete with one hand tied behind their backs. No, we can't pay only $5/day like in Brazil!!! And, now, we don't have so many of the really cool harvesting machines like Europe, Japan and Australia have. But even the "farmworkers" which this country has unofficially let in for thirty years are running around the country doing other things. It would take several years now for US farms to get back in the swim of high technology--and some will complain that they can't afford it and will shut down or move out of country. Darnit, anyway!

So Dianne looks at her suffering farmers and gets sneaky.

We need to keep calling her to wtihdraw her "Emergency Agricultural Worker Status" amendment from the Iraq war funding bill. Time to grow up into the adult world, Di. This farm policy--or lack of it--has been a royal disaster and turned us into laughingstocks. Our sympathies, Di, for your farm constituents---BUT THIS JUST AIN'T GONNA WORK!

Will do.

ACTION ALERT! PLEASE JOIN IN!

http://www.alipac.us/ftopict-116044.html

Some of the ways that modern agriculture uses new techniques to increase production:
1. Genetic modification. Over forty years ago California plant geneticists developed a tomato that was well suited for harvesting by machine. Changing from the round, plump thinskinned varieties most of us know they developed the Roma; oblong, thicker skinned able to tolerate rougher handling. This was perfct for canning tomatoes, sauces, ketchup, etc. and could be grabbed by the stem yanked out of the ground and fruit stripped off by the mechanized plucker.
Tree fruit has been genetically designed so that the stem withers as the fruit gets to satisfactory ripeness. Then it falls very easily into the harvester. Even back in the 1930's "hybrid maize" was developed to make it suitable for machine harvesting.
2. Agricultural engineering and changeable implements. Despite a void of federal support for agricultural technology (Thank you, Jimmy Carter) state universities and equipment manufacturers have soldiered on with new products and innovations. Raspberries, one would think, would damage easily with mechanical harvesting. Solution: suck them off with a vacuum. Other cane berries are flopped back and forth until they fall off. The possibilities are endless with new materials like stainless steel, carbon fibre, soft nylons, molded plastics--alll providing unlimited ways to get even easily damage produce off the bush. And a lot of these technologies are simply mounted on to a tractor. Heck, they could probably even drop the produce into some sort of water conveyance and wash them at the same time.
3. Computer mapping for fertilizers and readiness for harvesting. Tree fruit, for example, can be scanned first by a camera that looks for color indicating ripeness. A computerized program is developed and a robotic picker harvests in those exact spots. Here's a company with a lot of high tech wizardry that smart farmers are using:
http://www.trimble.com/ag_harvesting.shtml

So, tell Sen Feinstein that American agriculture needs to get into the 21st Century. We don't have time to go chasing after "farmworkers" whose instinct is to run off as soon as they can.

The use of migrant workers is a 20th century concept. Mechanization is the best way to eliminate the back-breaking work knowone wants to do and is a way to generate higher paying jobs in manufacturing--and other spin off businesses.

Keeping migrant workers on the farm and returning home is a losing game in the year 2008.

KEEP CALLING YOUR U.S. SENATORS TO KILL THIS TERRIBLE AMENDMENT!

Steve

Good to see you post on Alipac again, Steve. Keep after those Democrats, would you, so that we can get AMERICANS back to work!

Keep calling everyone!!


>>RED ALERT" "ACTION NEEDED NOW!!"<<
PLEASE MAKE CALLS, FAXES AND E-MAILS.....
THEIR TRYING TO GET AMNESTY AGAIN WITH THE AG'S BILL IN THE
IRAQ FUNDING BILL.....
http://www.alipac.us/ftopict-115596.html