The agriculture podcast Farm to Taber has a few interesting episodes on this topic (including the Prison Labor episode here: https://www.farmtotaber.com/episode

The agriculture podcast Farm to Taber has a few interesting episodes on this topic (including the Prison Labor episode here: https://www.farmtotaber.com/episodes/2018/4/27/convict-labor https://www.farmtotaber.com/episodes/2018/4/27/convict-labor). America suffers from a cognitive dissonance because they refuse to recognize agricultural laborers as a skilled labor force. Anyone can pick berries for a day, but someone who has been working on farms for 30 years will give exponentially more output because of the muscle memory and constitution they have developed. It is a true form of skilled labor, and it's the truth behind articles where farms struggled to replace immigrant labor with Americans. (https://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/05/us/farmers-strain-to-hire-american-workers-in-place-of-migrant-labor.html https://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/05/us/farmers-strain-to-hire...). As exploitative as the industry is (and, depending on your view of capitalism, you may say all labor is exploitative), it was significantly better before President Clinton's 1996 immigration law (https://www.vox.com/2016/4/28/11515132/iirira-clinton-immigration https://www.vox.com/2016/4/28/11515132/iirira-clinton-immigr...). Seasonal workers could migrate to the US, work temporarily, and then return home for their own growing season with relative ease. Many of these workers only felt pressured to bring in their families and settle permanently after their own, US-based livelihoods were threatened. Restoring temporary worker status would be a huge benefit for America's agricultural industry. Recognizing the competence and skill involved in growing our food would also help us make sure crops get picked. Automation that improves throughput per worker and affords workers more benefits should be the end-goal, but there's no way we'll be able to reach it with the industry's current political climate.