Thread: Editorial: Farm labor crisis looms

Editorial: Farm labor crisis looms
Posted: Monday, July 11, 2011 12:00 pm

Farming is a business of action. The cows need milking, the farmer makes sure they get milked now, not later. The crops need harvesting, the farmer gets out there and harvests them now, not later. Getting business done has top priority or the farm soon becomes history.

Congress, however, is another story.

Congress has been fiddling around for years with regulations for allowing foreigners to work on U.S. farms. A workable system is needed to allow farmers to bring in foreign workers on a temporary basis. That is about all that lawmakers can agree on. Where things fall apart is when the discussion turns to how to fix the current, largely unworkable system.

Under the current H2A visa program, immigrants are allowed in to the country to work temporarily on farms. However, hiring under the program is a slow, complicated process. Nor does it include dairy farms. Sens. Kirsten E. Gillibrand and Charles E. Schumer have joined other Democratic senators proposing to expand H2A to dairy farms. Similar legislation has been introduced in the House by Democrat Rep. William L. Owens. It’s an attempt to fix one problem in a program that has so many problems that some lawmakers want to scrap it and craft a new guest farmworker program.

Efforts at comprehensive immigration reform, which would include an “Ag Jobsâ€

Farmers need to get a grip,change their mindset and kick their Foreign Worker Addiction Habit. If they raise the pay/working conditions they will have all the help they need.

I grew up on a farm and we raised about everything.But the farmers created this problem themselves by hiring them for cheap labor cutting the throats of the AMERICAN workers that were helping them.Now im retired and farm alittle ill never pay an illegal one damn penny to help me i will pay a fair wage for AMERICAN help or let my crop rot thats the way i feel.Farmers can get help pay a fair wage.

Originally Posted by duckman

I grew up on a farm and we raised about everything.But the farmers created this problem themselves by hiring them for cheap labor cutting the throats of the AMERICAN workers that were helping them.Now im retired and farm alittle ill never pay an illegal one damn penny to help me i will pay a fair wage for AMERICAN help or let my crop rot thats the way i feel.Farmers can get help pay a fair wage.

The California Rural Legal Organizing Project, in conjunction with the United Farm Workers, won a significant lawsuit in 1979 when they sought to dismantle the University of California's mechanized harvesting project. Produce, such as the Roma tomato, had been designed by crop geneticists specifically so that they could be machine harvested. The feedral government subsequently abandoned its technology programs, leaving the advancement of such agricultural science up to state universities.

The popularity of organic produce also tends to work against genetic modification with the purpose of automated harvesting.

Thanks to machine technology and other crop science advances the production of wheat in this country today is 100X more efficient per acre than it was in the 1700's. Corn production is 30X more efficient. There have been advances worldwide in machine technology----but obviously any advancement leaves some businesses out. Some will survive and some won't. Probably the bottom line is that without further introduction of automation at various points in the produce supply chain, American agriculture will be less competitive against foreign agribusiness which has access to vastly cheaper labor. Some varieties of produce will be affected, and some not so much.

Well if robots can do surgery, I think we can trust them to pick a damn head of lettuce. ROBOT PICKERS. Thats the ticket!!!

Originally Posted by pattyk

Well if robots can do surgery, I think we can trust them to pick a damn head of lettuce. ROBOT PICKERS. Thats the ticket!!!

RIGHT ON PATTYK.Advantage of robots,1 they will understand english2they wont be on ss medicade medicare food stamps 3 they wont start gangs 4wont be stealing 5 wont be killing 6 wont be having anchor babies 7dont need to build a fence to keep them out or in and 8 if you get tierd of them or dont like how their performing just turn them off or scrap them out scrap metal is bringing good money not like a worn out illegal Good idea pattyk.

Originally Posted by pattyk

Well if robots can do surgery, I think we can trust them to pick a damn head of lettuce. ROBOT PICKERS. Thats the ticket!!!

Yes...it's impossible to ignore that fact! It's time the ag sector joined the 21st century. I'm also tired of the argument that head of lettuce will cost ten dollars if such technology is implemented (or if an American, God forbid, ever had to pick a head of lettuce. Ditto for enforcing our immigration laws as well)!

That $1 head of lettuce already has a price tag of over $10 bucks when you factor in the social, educational, welfare costs, etc., we are paying in order to subsidize this so called "cheap labor" via illegal invaders. Illegal invaders absolutely destroy anything and everything when they congregate in large numbers.

Just because the market isn't charging me $10 bucks for that head of lettuce doesn’t mean we’re not paying similar costs, by ignoring our immigration laws so farmers can line their pockets by exploiting illegal invader labor!

Besides, I'd be happy to pay $10 bucks for a head of lettuce if it meant our immigration laws would be enforced.

3 they wont start gangs

Now....I don't know if THAT is completely true. I've heard that they may be able to do that in the future!


And here's the Ramsay Highlander out pickin' Romaine lettuce:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YrGeX-29AhE

esides, I'd be happy to pay $10 bucks for a head of lettuce if it meant our immigration laws would be enforced

Me too NB. And it would be cleaner lettuce too. No more outbrakes of e-coli from these dirty pickers, who never heard of washing their hands. Robots are clean and they are gentleman, they wont hang on street corners saying dirty things to young girls.