4 ms·

This could be rephrased as "can Amerca's farms exist without breaking the law". The answer to which is, of course, yes. It is illegal in this country to employ

This could be rephrased as "can Amerca's farms exist without breaking the law". The answer to which is, of course, yes. It is illegal in this country to employ a noncitizen without a work visa. It is also illegal to pay less than minimum wage. I'm not even talking about the ethical aspects of pulling the rug from unskilled domestic workforce by hiring illegal workers. Not even Obama hesitated to deport illegals in record numbers.

IIAOPSW 9y ago
>"can Amerca's farms exist without breaking the law". The answer to which is, of course, yes. How do you reach this conclusion?
- kodfodrasz 9y ago
  They could exist that way in the past, and they could feed the country, and even provide a surplus. What has changed in the laws of nature, that it is no longer viable, to produce food without importing slave workforce? I thought the USA had a civil war to end the kind of thinking you are representing. Maybe the age of cheap food (a lot of which is thrown to the waste) ends, but it has never existed in many parts of the world.
  - peterwaller 9y ago
    > I thought the USA had a civil war to end the kind of thinking you are representing I think you're over-reading the phrase "How do you reach this conclusion?". The author didn't suggest that it was necessary, only that they were interested in seeing your reasoning. The world is a complicated place, so it can be reasonable to assume a default position that either thing is possible.
  - watwut 9y ago
    They were not competing with food from abroad at that time.
  - felipeerias 9y ago
    It is my understanding that the US farming sector has always relied on continued access to large amounts of underpaid or slave labour.
    - Spooky23 9y ago
      Not really. The current situation is tail wagging the dog scenario. Between the politics of water in the west and decades of the Feds ignoring migrant workers, farms are fully corporate. When you buy a container of strawberries in the market today, you're contributing to a global supply chain where companies own farms all over the Western Hemisphere. Operating companies like that which are like little command economies is expensive, and you as consumer don't want to pay for the layers of administration and attorneys needed. So the workers pay.
- chroem- 9y ago
  Importing large numbers of foreign migrant workers is a recent phenomenon in agriculture. Farms managed just fine 20 years ago.
  - vizeroth 9y ago
    So why did the U.S. sign the Mexican Farm Labor Agreement in 1942? The Migrant Labor Agreement of 1951? Why did the UFW hold protests at the U.S. border in 1969-1973? Why did the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 specifically address agricultural workers? Importing large numbers of foreign workers, migrant or otherwise, has been the backbone of the agricultural labor market in the U.S. since the country was founded. It's not necessarily a good thing, just not a recent thing by any means.
    - Spooky23 9y ago
      Mexican agricultural workers have always been a thing. But the concentration of farm output to a few regions of California is a recent phenomenon, and the resulting industrialization of agriculture was a thing. When I was a teen in the early 90s, I worked on a 500 acre farm in upstate ny. At that time it was possible to support a family and a few workers on land like that with a diversified crop of dairy, hay, something like oats and a few other things. The neighboring farm grew vegetables. That is no longer possible. 90% of farms within 75 miles <250 acres are hobby farms, growing subsidized corn, or are legacy dairy farms that will be subdivisions when the farmer is too old to work or his equipment wears out.
- michaelgrosner2 9y ago
  Of course they could survive - they'll just have to raise prices accordingly. So far the American system has prioritized cheaper food over paying workers a decent wage, it seems like now we're on the trend to reverse that.
  - dagw 9y ago
    they'll just have to raise prices accordingly But without matching the price rise with some sort of import tariff, would people still choose the more expensive American produce over the cheaper imports?
  - johnnyfaehell 9y ago
    But the thing is, farmers don't really have that much control over the price.
- Spooky23 9y ago
  We have millions of people who aren't working. Shipping in people from El Salvador is just a way to have a cheap, easy to control work force.
awjr 9y ago
This argument is similar to the one used to justify Brexit, that immigrants are in some way taking farm jobs away from locals. The reality though is very different. The jobs that are seasonal, tough, and do not pay well. Literaly the way nature works requires a transient workforce to harvest produce. We need to accept that many farms are reliant on cheap migrant labour and that this needs accommodating. We're putting our ability to feed ourselves as a country at risk.
- kodfodrasz 9y ago
  If you need illegal immigrants, paid absymal wages, and not subject to worker protections (aka. slaves) to produce food, then you are not feeding yourself. Your slaves feed you. Another alternative is buying the food from the market, from other countries, until the prize is lower than the price covering the costs for the farms to use legal workers.
  - programmernews3 9y ago
    Agree with this. Illegal immigration, especially in America, is modern day slavery that has been co-opted by the left for their own political gain.
- DoofusOfDeath 9y ago
  > The reality though is very different. The jobs that are seasonal, tough, and do not pay well. I've never understood this line of reasoning. Given the crucial nature of food, I would expect that were illegal immigrants to leave the picture, the agriculture system would adapt by some combination of (a) higher wages and (b) more automation. Presumably this would lead to food becoming more expensive (at least until automation improved), but I doubt we'd see famine. > The jobs that are seasonal, tough, and do not pay well. When I was a kid, kids on summer vacation did exactly this kind of work.
  - raesene6 9y ago
    To me, far more likely is that locally grown food would be displaced by food grown in lower cost countries. That already happens to quite a degree in the UK, but it's mainly to make things available "out of season" from what I've seen. A significant hike in UK grown food costs, would just lead to more being imported, unless of course you start going down the line of more import tariffs which is of course possible but tends to have other consequences in terms of things like trade wars and reciprocal tariffs on UK produced goods. Of course you could eschew tariff protection and allow food production to move to other countries, but that in itself has potentially serious consequences as a trade war or some kind of event which disrupts supply from those other countries could endanger the food security of your country...
mc32 9y ago
Of course they could. In Japan it's unusual to see a non-native worker in much of the service industry despite low unemployment combined with low birthrates. So, despite that, employers who provide service jobs are not going broke for having to pay somewhat higher wages nor are people not participating in the service economy. As it is the slice of earnings which go to food is historically small, therefore a modest increase in price to be able to afford to attract American workers is not extraordinary.

IIAOPSW 9y ago

>"can Amerca's farms exist without breaking the law". The answer to which is, of course, yes. How do you reach this conclusion?

kodfodrasz 9y ago
They could exist that way in the past, and they could feed the country, and even provide a surplus. What has changed in the laws of nature, that it is no longer viable, to produce food without importing slave workforce? I thought the USA had a civil war to end the kind of thinking you are representing. Maybe the age of cheap food (a lot of which is thrown to the waste) ends, but it has never existed in many parts of the world.
- peterwaller 9y ago
  > I thought the USA had a civil war to end the kind of thinking you are representing I think you're over-reading the phrase "How do you reach this conclusion?". The author didn't suggest that it was necessary, only that they were interested in seeing your reasoning. The world is a complicated place, so it can be reasonable to assume a default position that either thing is possible.
- watwut 9y ago
  They were not competing with food from abroad at that time.
- felipeerias 9y ago
  It is my understanding that the US farming sector has always relied on continued access to large amounts of underpaid or slave labour.
  - Spooky23 9y ago
    Not really. The current situation is tail wagging the dog scenario. Between the politics of water in the west and decades of the Feds ignoring migrant workers, farms are fully corporate. When you buy a container of strawberries in the market today, you're contributing to a global supply chain where companies own farms all over the Western Hemisphere. Operating companies like that which are like little command economies is expensive, and you as consumer don't want to pay for the layers of administration and attorneys needed. So the workers pay.
chroem- 9y ago
Importing large numbers of foreign migrant workers is a recent phenomenon in agriculture. Farms managed just fine 20 years ago.
- vizeroth 9y ago
  So why did the U.S. sign the Mexican Farm Labor Agreement in 1942? The Migrant Labor Agreement of 1951? Why did the UFW hold protests at the U.S. border in 1969-1973? Why did the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 specifically address agricultural workers? Importing large numbers of foreign workers, migrant or otherwise, has been the backbone of the agricultural labor market in the U.S. since the country was founded. It's not necessarily a good thing, just not a recent thing by any means.
  - Spooky23 9y ago
    Mexican agricultural workers have always been a thing. But the concentration of farm output to a few regions of California is a recent phenomenon, and the resulting industrialization of agriculture was a thing. When I was a teen in the early 90s, I worked on a 500 acre farm in upstate ny. At that time it was possible to support a family and a few workers on land like that with a diversified crop of dairy, hay, something like oats and a few other things. The neighboring farm grew vegetables. That is no longer possible. 90% of farms within 75 miles <250 acres are hobby farms, growing subsidized corn, or are legacy dairy farms that will be subdivisions when the farmer is too old to work or his equipment wears out.
michaelgrosner2 9y ago
Of course they could survive - they'll just have to raise prices accordingly. So far the American system has prioritized cheaper food over paying workers a decent wage, it seems like now we're on the trend to reverse that.
- dagw 9y ago
  they'll just have to raise prices accordingly But without matching the price rise with some sort of import tariff, would people still choose the more expensive American produce over the cheaper imports?
- johnnyfaehell 9y ago
  But the thing is, farmers don't really have that much control over the price.
Spooky23 9y ago
We have millions of people who aren't working. Shipping in people from El Salvador is just a way to have a cheap, easy to control work force.

awjr 9y ago

This argument is similar to the one used to justify Brexit, that immigrants are in some way taking farm jobs away from locals. The reality though is very different. The jobs that are seasonal, tough, and do not pay well. Literaly the way nature works requires a transient workforce to harvest produce. We need to accept that many farms are reliant on cheap migrant labour and that this needs accommodating. We're putting our ability to feed ourselves as a country at risk.

kodfodrasz 9y ago
If you need illegal immigrants, paid absymal wages, and not subject to worker protections (aka. slaves) to produce food, then you are not feeding yourself. Your slaves feed you. Another alternative is buying the food from the market, from other countries, until the prize is lower than the price covering the costs for the farms to use legal workers.
- programmernews3 9y ago
  Agree with this. Illegal immigration, especially in America, is modern day slavery that has been co-opted by the left for their own political gain.
DoofusOfDeath 9y ago
> The reality though is very different. The jobs that are seasonal, tough, and do not pay well. I've never understood this line of reasoning. Given the crucial nature of food, I would expect that were illegal immigrants to leave the picture, the agriculture system would adapt by some combination of (a) higher wages and (b) more automation. Presumably this would lead to food becoming more expensive (at least until automation improved), but I doubt we'd see famine. > The jobs that are seasonal, tough, and do not pay well. When I was a kid, kids on summer vacation did exactly this kind of work.
- raesene6 9y ago
  To me, far more likely is that locally grown food would be displaced by food grown in lower cost countries. That already happens to quite a degree in the UK, but it's mainly to make things available "out of season" from what I've seen. A significant hike in UK grown food costs, would just lead to more being imported, unless of course you start going down the line of more import tariffs which is of course possible but tends to have other consequences in terms of things like trade wars and reciprocal tariffs on UK produced goods. Of course you could eschew tariff protection and allow food production to move to other countries, but that in itself has potentially serious consequences as a trade war or some kind of event which disrupts supply from those other countries could endanger the food security of your country...

mc32 9y ago

Of course they could. In Japan it's unusual to see a non-native worker in much of the service industry despite low unemployment combined with low birthrates. So, despite that, employers who provide service jobs are not going broke for having to pay somewhat higher wages nor are people not participating in the service economy. As it is the slice of earnings which go to food is historically small, therefore a modest increase in price to be able to afford to attract American workers is not extraordinary.