My girlfriend, who worked for US Customs, has a story about the sugar industry here in South Florida. Sugar harvesting is done in the winter and the companies,

My girlfriend, who worked for US Customs, has a story about the sugar industry here in South Florida. Sugar harvesting is done in the winter and the companies, for quality reasons, prefer to have the cane hand harvested. The companies would bring in island workers (legally) to work the three month harvest. The work was hard and by US standards, low paying. But per island standards, those three months brought in enough money for the harvester to not only not work for the remaining nine months, but raise a family. But enough outcry about the companies "exploiting" the islanders was enough for the companies to say "uncle," and automate the harvest with machines. I'm sure that had an effect on the economies of the islands.