Thread: Idaho Potato Fields: Prisoners Replace Migrants

When one considers that the wheat thrashing combine was invented over 170 years ago, it is high time that mechanization be extended into all agricultural harvest. There are only a few crops that could not be harvested mechanically. Food co-ops, food banks, u-pickers---could also help bring the stuff in. There are a zillion ways to do it. Just use some ingenuity!!

There are machines that dig potatoes.

Yep:

Spud diggers take a driver , usually at least four people riding on the back picking rocks , vines and other such junk out of the potatoes as they make their way up the elevator to dump into the truck.

I think the jobs the article was referring to was a fresh pack operation where the potatoes are washed , sized, all the culls picked out and then they are graded by the USDA, prior to packing in box.s , bags and bulk loads sent off the fry operations , instant potatoes plants etc.

My sister worked in a fresh pack plant for a number of years and just loved her job. Then one day the plant announced it was laying most every one off . They did.

Then they hired illegal workers to fire the place back up and paid less, offered no bennies and did not want any of the old crews back. That plant had been going since the mid sixties and turning a profit all those years.

Still is in fact. They just stiffed the legal American work force for higher profits in their coffers. That outfit is one of the largest potatoes and refried bean processors in the world with plants in America, Mexico , Idahohoho.

It is the same all over Washington and Idaho. Good jobs gone to illegal aliens while the legal residents are pushed out because they will not take a back stabbing by greedy employers.

Washington state is screaming that they do not have enough people to harvest their crops but it is a state government backed load of malarkey. What they should really be saying is we do not have enough near slave labor to fill our needs.

Also , it is Washington Ag's way of doing their part to promote amnesty. I have yet to see a single crop go unharvested for lack of laborers and trust me when I tell you I live in the thick of Washington states fruit and veggies crops.

Right in the center of the Columbia basins irrigation district . Crops all around my house in fact as well as many fruit operations . Many of the farmers and fruit growers here are friends of mine.

That kind of gives me an inside view to the truth of the matter. Idaho saw it work for the farmers in eastern Washington and is following in Washington States footsteps.

Washington and Idaho are sanctuary states that scream they are being drained by illegal invasion and demand more federal tax dollars to over come the problem.