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Nobody forced the farmers to become reliant on migrant workers though. It was just a simple decision for them: cheap labor that's available today or expensive

Nobody forced the farmers to become reliant on migrant workers though. It was just a simple decision for them: cheap labor that's available today or expensive labor... They mostly went with cheap, and now they don't have anyone available. Tough luck I guess, but it always was just a question of time until this happened.

makomk 7y ago
At least in the UK, the countryside has basically turned into a vacation and retirement area for wealthy Londoners. It's pretty much impossible for people to afford to live where the labour is needed on any sort of pay that would make farming actually viable, which restricts it to workers from lower cost-of-living countries that cram into cramped accommodation for the length of the season and then return home. Not sure about countries like Spain and Germany.
- maelito 7y ago
  The countryside everywhere in UK ? Or just around London ?
  - makomk 7y ago
    Everywhere in England at the very least. Wales and especially Scotland might be a little better. The south and around London is probably worse, but even rural Yorkshire is pretty bad.
    - GordonS 7y ago
      Scot here. The countryside is open to everyone, and the "right to roam" makes it even moreso. But I haven't seen much different in the rest of the UK - honestly, to claim the countryside is a giant retirement home seems absolutely absurd to me.
  - gambiting 7y ago
    Around London and a lot of the "south". But come out to Yorkshire or Northumberland and you can buy a farm and some land for very little. Living outside of the city in Northumberland(say within 30 minute driving distance to Newcastle) can be stupidly cheap.
    - chrisseaton 7y ago
      > Living outside of the city in Northumberland(say within 30 minute driving distance to Newcastle) can be stupidly cheap. Shame there aren't many decently paying jobs there, though. Unless you work remotely I'm not sure what there is compared to the south east?
      - gambiting 7y ago
        That wasn't the point though - the point was that farm workers don't live close to farms anymore, because British countryside has gotten really expensive. Well, if you work at a farm in Northumberland you can rent a room pretty much anywhere in the area for a few(3-4) hundred pounds, maybe even less. Obviously that doesn't negate the broader point - North of England isn't where most farms are, after all. And places where most farms are, are expensive.
usrusr 7y ago
You make it sound as if the farmers were the only ones affected if they fail to get in their harvest.
- 411111111111111 7y ago
  That wasn't my intention at all. Fresh produce will get considerably more expensive this year, thats for sure. Especially fruits as they're often very hard to harvest through automation. In the coming years I'd wager that a lot of farms will increasingly go for automation now. That'll have it's own consequences. The effect of this virus on our global society is gonna be massive and will likely bring a lot of changes.. not necessary good ones either
  - Zenst 7y ago
    >Especially fruits as they're often very hard to harvest through automation. So very true and an area in which the robotic revolution has always been mooted to happen soon, for many years... However the transition will have an impact as once you remove those jobs, you shift the issues. So yes, automation will make things cheaper in one hand, but more expensive in another.
- PeterisP 7y ago
  Products which require a lot of manual effort to harvest are generally luxury goods, not essential for feeding the population. If for whatever reason it seems that this year there's not going to be enough migrant labor to harvest your strawberries, then when the spring comes you can plow that field over and plant potatoes, which will require much, much less labor and feed more people from the same field. This year is very much not 'business as usual' both in production and also in consumption. Just as most other fields, farming needs to adapt to the changing situation; IMHO it's counterproductive to invest a lot of resources to try and preserve the status quo - we're going to see that some farm products become harder to grow, or harder to transport, or are more difficult for people to afford because of economic problems. It does not mean that we should heroically strive to preserve our ability eat as before, if that means that we're going to be eating less of product like that - less fresh food year round (greenhouses or imported), less meat, less fruit, etc, than that should be accepted, and it's okay; and it's okay if the circumstances force the farmers to switch from high-value labor intensive foods back to cheap, efficient staple crops. A prime example is the scenes I've seen from Netherlands sizeable flower plantations; as flower purchasing in most of their export markets is way down, a lot of the harvest is just discarded. I'm certain that some of that field/greenhouse capacity will be repurposed for basic food growing instead.
Zenst 7y ago
> Nobody forced the farmers to become reliant on migrant workers though. Not strictly true in a competative market that races for the lowest possible cost. It's the toxic company culture mentality that in this case, the shareholders are the customers and they want to have their cheap food. Hence many farmers been squeezed via large corporations and dairy farmers and many others operate upon margins that are just insane and unsustainable that many end up producing at a loss overall.
peterwoerner 7y ago
I mean, the market does. Most people won't pay an 50% on food because the farmers pay a living wage.
- JaimeThompson 7y ago
  How much of the cost of food is from how much it costs to harvest it? I find it difficult to believe that even doubling the cost of harvesting would cause the price to increase by 50%.
  - Zenst 7y ago
    Labour does play a big part in farming and things like fruit - a lions share of the costs in farm to market. Overall - this may be of interest: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/851845/fbs-farmaccountsengland-13dec19.pdf https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/...
- xienze 7y ago
  > I mean, the market does. Most people won't pay an 50% on food because the farmers pay a living wage. I always get a chuckle hearing this talk from the sort of people pushing for $15/hr fast food wages.
  - random314 7y ago
    Why do you get a chuckle? Can you explain?
    - xienze 7y ago
      Because it’s seemingly impossible to pay farm workers real money but fast food workers? No problem!
      - random314 7y ago
        The minimum wage would apply to everyone. Both fast food workers and farm workers. What is your point?
kmlx 7y ago
i don't understand this line of thought. > Nobody forced the farmers... The markets did force them, right? If a farmer started making more money from using cheap labour, then the rest would need to follow suit. > It was just a simple decision for them... It doesn't seems like anything about this subject is "simple" as farming is big and wide. 1. some farming is loss making in the EU even with cheap labour 2. without cheap labour this subset would need to be subsides 100% (vs ~80% as it is now) 3. you simply cannot fight against ultra low wages from developing countries; you either adapt or die
lukasLansky 7y ago
Moloch did force them. https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/30/meditations-on-moloch/ https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/30/meditations-on-moloch/
DoreenMichele 7y ago
Some years ago, I saw a comedian mock the idea that immigrants were a threat to American jobs by joking that he had always wanted to be an underpaid farm laborer and can't make that dream work because the illegal immigrants took all those jobs. In America, it used to be common for young men in high school and college to do construction work during the summer. Now, it's mostly immigrants. When I was still a military wife, they changed the fitness test to be less stringent for younger members because they were having so much trouble getting qualified recruits. It really pissed my husband off because they didn't make his test any easier. He was in his thirties and was told "You've been working out for years. You are in the best shape of your life." Developed countries are turning into nations of couch potatoes who turn their noses up at hard physical labor and probably couldn't do it if they wanted to. Or could but it would be extremely hard on them and there would be additional personal costs akin to training for a marathon.
- dragonwriter 7y ago
  > In America, it used to be common for young men in high school and college to do construction work during the summer. Now, it's mostly immigrants. Because college or college-bound adults are, if they are motivated enough to work in the first place, mostly focussed on work that provides a competitive advantage in college admissions and post-college careers, which trade labor mostly isn't.
  - DoreenMichele 7y ago
    And because young people are less physically fit than they used to be, so they don't have the muscle and stamina required by such jobs. But the reasons why are almost irrelevant. The pertinent detail is that employers can't fill these jobs without immigrant labor. Most Americans don't want them at any pay rate.
    - jopsen 7y ago
      At 20 USD/hour I think you would be able to fill these jobs. But if you want to make that salary picking fruit, then we'll have to pay more for it -- or you'll need to have some automation to increase productivity. I doubt we'll want to pay more, consumers would rather buy imports instead.
jonnypotty 7y ago
Farmers generally aren't the ones getting rich though are they? I think that says a lot.
- dragonwriter 7y ago
  > Farmers generally aren't the ones getting rich though are they? Yes. I mean, not the decreasingly relevant to reality American mythical archetype (always invoked in political context as if it were the mainstay of American Life) of the independent yeoman farmer class, but the actual corporate agribusiness industry which has long displaced it in owning and operating farmland.
dheera 7y ago
To get past the paywall: document.body.dataset.paywallOverlayStatus="hide";document.querySelector("#graphics-paywall-overlay").remove();
dasil003 7y ago
This is such a weird comment, you might as well say no one forced humans to be such social creatures allowing viruses spread easily. People make relatively optimal local decisions based on the situation at hand. It's ludicrous to suggest they should have foreseen this situation and just paid more for labor. That kind of second-guessing could be applied to basically 90% of the world right now, and the other 10% just got lucky.
- Sawamara 7y ago
  Its not a weird comment. The current global mode of production is engineered to ONLY work when there are no global crisises at hand. Guess what: we have a global crisis at hand now. Which means that the neoliberal modus operandi fails without a struggle. It just collapsed overnight. And if you think otherwise, just answer me this: if tourism cedes to exist, what do wild west neoliberal goverments do (with their current lack of social safety nets) with their 8-10% of their "workforce" having zero capability to get an income?
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - dasil003 7y ago
    Why are farmers responsible for this? How do you propose they would have paid for more expensive labor without broad collusion to keep prices high?
  - baq 7y ago
    Easy - farmers can’t pay more because they would be outcompeted by those who pay less. Race to the bottom which ends predictably bad but which players in the market can’t do anything about short of illegal price fixing or temporary workers unionizing (like that could happen).
    - Sawamara 7y ago
      It could happen if there was a political will to have a framework for it to happen. There is not any in many countries, so that's that. Well, we will rethink these frameworks in the coming months, I am sure of that.
roenxi 7y ago
There is a faint whiff of hypocrisy in hiring foreign labour, it suggests to me that some sort of cash-in-hand deal is afoot that isn't in line with local labour practices. This is a serious and concerning situation. However, it also has a certain schadenfreude of wealthy Europeans waking up in horror at having to pay local wages in excess of local social safety nets in order to grow their own food.
- Zancarius 7y ago
  > it suggests to me that some sort of cash-in-hand deal is afoot that isn't in line with local labour practices. Absolutely. It's exploitative to be sure, at least here in the US. Farms don't want to pay more for labor, and in some cases (perhaps the plurality of them), the migrant laborers are paid under the table to avoid the tax burden on both ends. Of course, this means the company doesn't have to worry about payroll taxes, workman's comp, unemployment, etc., and the workers aren't going to register with the IRS to get a tax ID. Additionally, the laborers are paid so little it's difficult to think of this in any other way than as a form of slavery sanctioned by the state as it turns a blind eye to what amount to egregious violations of labor laws. Part of the blame I place on us as consumers. If we weren't so price sensitive to things like fresh produce, perhaps we could pay more such that things are done above board and we become less reliant on migrant labor. Either way, something has to change.
- KarlKemp 7y ago
  There’s certainly exploitation happening, but it’s just as true that these were relatively good jobs for those that did them based on costs of living in their home countries. As such, this practice has been important to reduce differences between richer and poorer countries, not just in Europe but also between the US and Mexico, for example. That Schadenfreude seems to be prevalent among the far right here, who might just as soon become the object of it when differences start to widen again and thousands of people start seeking a better live by migrating outright.
simion314 7y ago
>Nobody forced the farmers to become reliant on migrant workers though They had the alternative to give up, maybe try to find a job in the city or suicide? I am wondering if you imagine this farmers having a big pile of cache because they cheeped out on workers. Maybe I am wrong so please let me know what would you do if you own a farm and you can't find a job nearby, some people will abandon their homes and go in a big city to work there but not everyone can do that or enjoy working on some assembly line and live in a concrete block.
gls2ro 7y ago
We are in a time of crisis and the first instinct is to close ourselves but I think we should not throw away what the “free”(almost in some cases) movement of people made possible: Cheap good food => more people can afford to buy it => less hunger/suffering in the world. Here is another example: Cheap technology => more people have access to computers => more innovations are possible => more cheap technology => better life quality.
- Scoundreller 7y ago
  > Cheap good food => more people can afford to buy it => less hunger/suffering in the world. You can have cheap good food with mechanical and/or high-scale production. Just means you'll be eating bananas instead of strawberries. And whatever's in-season or canned out-of-season instead of fresh anything year-round. And chickpeas instead of beef. Sugar instead of honey. Lettuce instead of kale. If anything, this is an opportunity to make cheap food even cheaper instead of using that land resource to make luxury fresh fruits/herbs year-round. People will complain about it non-stop though.
jariel 7y ago
If the authorities at various levels allow undocumented workers to exist, then they will filter into the economy and market forces will definitely force farms to take them on. This is not about farming though: it's the canary in the coalmine for the entire economy. You cannot just stop the economy and print magic money and expect everything to be ok. We have to be smart like Koreans and control this virus effectively so we can progressively get some of the gears going again, because pain is coming otherwise.
throwaway_pdp09 7y ago
And it's was a simple decision for you too: do I pay this much for my food, or expensively more?
jdavis703 7y ago
But people want cheap food. I pay about double the price for my “fancy” milk which is locally produced and supposedly uses more sustainable and ethical practices. How many people would be OK with paying double the price for food? Probably not many judging by the myriad of much cheaper milk.
jandrewrogers 7y ago
At least in the US, I don't think people appreciate how expensive "expensive" actually is to encourage people to work in a part of the country where no one wants to live. You see the same issue with hiring labor for oil fields in places like North Dakota, where it requires six-figure pay to entice a marginally skilled worker to move out there. Agriculture has an identical problem in terms of the market clearing wage for labor, except they don't have the profit margins of the oil fields that allow them to throw $100+k at farm labor to make the problem go away. In that version of the world, it would be better to be farm labor than a farmer. It should also be noted that in some parts of the US, the migrant labor is not "cheap" either by any normal definition as they are paid well above the median wage in the US since they have all of the leverage. When I was growing up a significant fraction of farm labor in my area was ex-convicts from all over the country. The labor supply was so short that it was one of the best paying jobs that would readily hire an ex-convict. You still see some of this but it is greatly reduced, mostly just convicts who are from rural regions and are already accustomed to that environment.
phenkdo 7y ago
The "no shortage if you pay enough" viewpoint is rather myopic. The same people will be crying hoarse when prices of even basic necessities increase 10x or more, and there are food riots and possibly starvation. Many people in the west don't realize how good they have it
KarlKemp 7y ago
How are their options today limited by that decision? It’s not like there is some class of expert fruit pickers that was decimated and would take years to train again. Unless they had the power to deny their domestic workforce whatever other opportunities they had that made them unwilling to do farm work, it would have ended in the same spot.

makomk 7y ago

At least in the UK, the countryside has basically turned into a vacation and retirement area for wealthy Londoners. It's pretty much impossible for people to afford to live where the labour is needed on any sort of pay that would make farming actually viable, which restricts it to workers from lower cost-of-living countries that cram into cramped accommodation for the length of the season and then return home. Not sure about countries like Spain and Germany.

maelito 7y ago
The countryside everywhere in UK ? Or just around London ?
- makomk 7y ago
  Everywhere in England at the very least. Wales and especially Scotland might be a little better. The south and around London is probably worse, but even rural Yorkshire is pretty bad.
  - GordonS 7y ago
    Scot here. The countryside is open to everyone, and the "right to roam" makes it even moreso. But I haven't seen much different in the rest of the UK - honestly, to claim the countryside is a giant retirement home seems absolutely absurd to me.
- gambiting 7y ago
  Around London and a lot of the "south". But come out to Yorkshire or Northumberland and you can buy a farm and some land for very little. Living outside of the city in Northumberland(say within 30 minute driving distance to Newcastle) can be stupidly cheap.
  - chrisseaton 7y ago
    > Living outside of the city in Northumberland(say within 30 minute driving distance to Newcastle) can be stupidly cheap. Shame there aren't many decently paying jobs there, though. Unless you work remotely I'm not sure what there is compared to the south east?
    - gambiting 7y ago
      That wasn't the point though - the point was that farm workers don't live close to farms anymore, because British countryside has gotten really expensive. Well, if you work at a farm in Northumberland you can rent a room pretty much anywhere in the area for a few(3-4) hundred pounds, maybe even less. Obviously that doesn't negate the broader point - North of England isn't where most farms are, after all. And places where most farms are, are expensive.

usrusr 7y ago

You make it sound as if the farmers were the only ones affected if they fail to get in their harvest.

411111111111111 7y ago
That wasn't my intention at all. Fresh produce will get considerably more expensive this year, thats for sure. Especially fruits as they're often very hard to harvest through automation. In the coming years I'd wager that a lot of farms will increasingly go for automation now. That'll have it's own consequences. The effect of this virus on our global society is gonna be massive and will likely bring a lot of changes.. not necessary good ones either
- Zenst 7y ago
  >Especially fruits as they're often very hard to harvest through automation. So very true and an area in which the robotic revolution has always been mooted to happen soon, for many years... However the transition will have an impact as once you remove those jobs, you shift the issues. So yes, automation will make things cheaper in one hand, but more expensive in another.
PeterisP 7y ago
Products which require a lot of manual effort to harvest are generally luxury goods, not essential for feeding the population. If for whatever reason it seems that this year there's not going to be enough migrant labor to harvest your strawberries, then when the spring comes you can plow that field over and plant potatoes, which will require much, much less labor and feed more people from the same field. This year is very much not 'business as usual' both in production and also in consumption. Just as most other fields, farming needs to adapt to the changing situation; IMHO it's counterproductive to invest a lot of resources to try and preserve the status quo - we're going to see that some farm products become harder to grow, or harder to transport, or are more difficult for people to afford because of economic problems. It does not mean that we should heroically strive to preserve our ability eat as before, if that means that we're going to be eating less of product like that - less fresh food year round (greenhouses or imported), less meat, less fruit, etc, than that should be accepted, and it's okay; and it's okay if the circumstances force the farmers to switch from high-value labor intensive foods back to cheap, efficient staple crops. A prime example is the scenes I've seen from Netherlands sizeable flower plantations; as flower purchasing in most of their export markets is way down, a lot of the harvest is just discarded. I'm certain that some of that field/greenhouse capacity will be repurposed for basic food growing instead.

Zenst 7y ago

> Nobody forced the farmers to become reliant on migrant workers though. Not strictly true in a competative market that races for the lowest possible cost. It's the toxic company culture mentality that in this case, the shareholders are the customers and they want to have their cheap food. Hence many farmers been squeezed via large corporations and dairy farmers and many others operate upon margins that are just insane and unsustainable that many end up producing at a loss overall.

peterwoerner 7y ago

I mean, the market does. Most people won't pay an 50% on food because the farmers pay a living wage.

JaimeThompson 7y ago
How much of the cost of food is from how much it costs to harvest it? I find it difficult to believe that even doubling the cost of harvesting would cause the price to increase by 50%.
- Zenst 7y ago
  Labour does play a big part in farming and things like fruit - a lions share of the costs in farm to market. Overall - this may be of interest: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/851845/fbs-farmaccountsengland-13dec19.pdf https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/...
xienze 7y ago
> I mean, the market does. Most people won't pay an 50% on food because the farmers pay a living wage. I always get a chuckle hearing this talk from the sort of people pushing for $15/hr fast food wages.
- random314 7y ago
  Why do you get a chuckle? Can you explain?
  - xienze 7y ago
    Because it’s seemingly impossible to pay farm workers real money but fast food workers? No problem!
    - random314 7y ago
      The minimum wage would apply to everyone. Both fast food workers and farm workers. What is your point?

kmlx 7y ago

i don't understand this line of thought. > Nobody forced the farmers... The markets did force them, right? If a farmer started making more money from using cheap labour, then the rest would need to follow suit. > It was just a simple decision for them... It doesn't seems like anything about this subject is "simple" as farming is big and wide. 1. some farming is loss making in the EU even with cheap labour 2. without cheap labour this subset would need to be subsides 100% (vs ~80% as it is now) 3. you simply cannot fight against ultra low wages from developing countries; you either adapt or die

lukasLansky 7y ago

Moloch did force them. https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/30/meditations-on-moloch/ https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/30/meditations-on-moloch/

DoreenMichele 7y ago

Some years ago, I saw a comedian mock the idea that immigrants were a threat to American jobs by joking that he had always wanted to be an underpaid farm laborer and can't make that dream work because the illegal immigrants took all those jobs. In America, it used to be common for young men in high school and college to do construction work during the summer. Now, it's mostly immigrants. When I was still a military wife, they changed the fitness test to be less stringent for younger members because they were having so much trouble getting qualified recruits. It really pissed my husband off because they didn't make his test any easier. He was in his thirties and was told "You've been working out for years. You are in the best shape of your life." Developed countries are turning into nations of couch potatoes who turn their noses up at hard physical labor and probably couldn't do it if they wanted to. Or could but it would be extremely hard on them and there would be additional personal costs akin to training for a marathon.

dragonwriter 7y ago
> In America, it used to be common for young men in high school and college to do construction work during the summer. Now, it's mostly immigrants. Because college or college-bound adults are, if they are motivated enough to work in the first place, mostly focussed on work that provides a competitive advantage in college admissions and post-college careers, which trade labor mostly isn't.
- DoreenMichele 7y ago
  And because young people are less physically fit than they used to be, so they don't have the muscle and stamina required by such jobs. But the reasons why are almost irrelevant. The pertinent detail is that employers can't fill these jobs without immigrant labor. Most Americans don't want them at any pay rate.
  - jopsen 7y ago
    At 20 USD/hour I think you would be able to fill these jobs. But if you want to make that salary picking fruit, then we'll have to pay more for it -- or you'll need to have some automation to increase productivity. I doubt we'll want to pay more, consumers would rather buy imports instead.

jonnypotty 7y ago

Farmers generally aren't the ones getting rich though are they? I think that says a lot.

dragonwriter 7y ago
> Farmers generally aren't the ones getting rich though are they? Yes. I mean, not the decreasingly relevant to reality American mythical archetype (always invoked in political context as if it were the mainstay of American Life) of the independent yeoman farmer class, but the actual corporate agribusiness industry which has long displaced it in owning and operating farmland.

dheera 7y ago

To get past the paywall: document.body.dataset.paywallOverlayStatus="hide";document.querySelector("#graphics-paywall-overlay").remove();

dasil003 7y ago

This is such a weird comment, you might as well say no one forced humans to be such social creatures allowing viruses spread easily. People make relatively optimal local decisions based on the situation at hand. It's ludicrous to suggest they should have foreseen this situation and just paid more for labor. That kind of second-guessing could be applied to basically 90% of the world right now, and the other 10% just got lucky.

Sawamara 7y ago
Its not a weird comment. The current global mode of production is engineered to ONLY work when there are no global crisises at hand. Guess what: we have a global crisis at hand now. Which means that the neoliberal modus operandi fails without a struggle. It just collapsed overnight. And if you think otherwise, just answer me this: if tourism cedes to exist, what do wild west neoliberal goverments do (with their current lack of social safety nets) with their 8-10% of their "workforce" having zero capability to get an income?
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- dasil003 7y ago
  Why are farmers responsible for this? How do you propose they would have paid for more expensive labor without broad collusion to keep prices high?
- baq 7y ago
  Easy - farmers can’t pay more because they would be outcompeted by those who pay less. Race to the bottom which ends predictably bad but which players in the market can’t do anything about short of illegal price fixing or temporary workers unionizing (like that could happen).
  - Sawamara 7y ago
    It could happen if there was a political will to have a framework for it to happen. There is not any in many countries, so that's that. Well, we will rethink these frameworks in the coming months, I am sure of that.

roenxi 7y ago

There is a faint whiff of hypocrisy in hiring foreign labour, it suggests to me that some sort of cash-in-hand deal is afoot that isn't in line with local labour practices. This is a serious and concerning situation. However, it also has a certain schadenfreude of wealthy Europeans waking up in horror at having to pay local wages in excess of local social safety nets in order to grow their own food.

Zancarius 7y ago
> it suggests to me that some sort of cash-in-hand deal is afoot that isn't in line with local labour practices. Absolutely. It's exploitative to be sure, at least here in the US. Farms don't want to pay more for labor, and in some cases (perhaps the plurality of them), the migrant laborers are paid under the table to avoid the tax burden on both ends. Of course, this means the company doesn't have to worry about payroll taxes, workman's comp, unemployment, etc., and the workers aren't going to register with the IRS to get a tax ID. Additionally, the laborers are paid so little it's difficult to think of this in any other way than as a form of slavery sanctioned by the state as it turns a blind eye to what amount to egregious violations of labor laws. Part of the blame I place on us as consumers. If we weren't so price sensitive to things like fresh produce, perhaps we could pay more such that things are done above board and we become less reliant on migrant labor. Either way, something has to change.
KarlKemp 7y ago
There’s certainly exploitation happening, but it’s just as true that these were relatively good jobs for those that did them based on costs of living in their home countries. As such, this practice has been important to reduce differences between richer and poorer countries, not just in Europe but also between the US and Mexico, for example. That Schadenfreude seems to be prevalent among the far right here, who might just as soon become the object of it when differences start to widen again and thousands of people start seeking a better live by migrating outright.

simion314 7y ago

>Nobody forced the farmers to become reliant on migrant workers though They had the alternative to give up, maybe try to find a job in the city or suicide? I am wondering if you imagine this farmers having a big pile of cache because they cheeped out on workers. Maybe I am wrong so please let me know what would you do if you own a farm and you can't find a job nearby, some people will abandon their homes and go in a big city to work there but not everyone can do that or enjoy working on some assembly line and live in a concrete block.

gls2ro 7y ago

We are in a time of crisis and the first instinct is to close ourselves but I think we should not throw away what the “free”(almost in some cases) movement of people made possible: Cheap good food => more people can afford to buy it => less hunger/suffering in the world. Here is another example: Cheap technology => more people have access to computers => more innovations are possible => more cheap technology => better life quality.

Scoundreller 7y ago
> Cheap good food => more people can afford to buy it => less hunger/suffering in the world. You can have cheap good food with mechanical and/or high-scale production. Just means you'll be eating bananas instead of strawberries. And whatever's in-season or canned out-of-season instead of fresh anything year-round. And chickpeas instead of beef. Sugar instead of honey. Lettuce instead of kale. If anything, this is an opportunity to make cheap food even cheaper instead of using that land resource to make luxury fresh fruits/herbs year-round. People will complain about it non-stop though.

jariel 7y ago

If the authorities at various levels allow undocumented workers to exist, then they will filter into the economy and market forces will definitely force farms to take them on. This is not about farming though: it's the canary in the coalmine for the entire economy. You cannot just stop the economy and print magic money and expect everything to be ok. We have to be smart like Koreans and control this virus effectively so we can progressively get some of the gears going again, because pain is coming otherwise.

throwaway_pdp09 7y ago

And it's was a simple decision for you too: do I pay this much for my food, or expensively more?

jdavis703 7y ago

But people want cheap food. I pay about double the price for my “fancy” milk which is locally produced and supposedly uses more sustainable and ethical practices. How many people would be OK with paying double the price for food? Probably not many judging by the myriad of much cheaper milk.

jandrewrogers 7y ago

At least in the US, I don't think people appreciate how expensive "expensive" actually is to encourage people to work in a part of the country where no one wants to live. You see the same issue with hiring labor for oil fields in places like North Dakota, where it requires six-figure pay to entice a marginally skilled worker to move out there. Agriculture has an identical problem in terms of the market clearing wage for labor, except they don't have the profit margins of the oil fields that allow them to throw $100+k at farm labor to make the problem go away. In that version of the world, it would be better to be farm labor than a farmer. It should also be noted that in some parts of the US, the migrant labor is not "cheap" either by any normal definition as they are paid well above the median wage in the US since they have all of the leverage. When I was growing up a significant fraction of farm labor in my area was ex-convicts from all over the country. The labor supply was so short that it was one of the best paying jobs that would readily hire an ex-convict. You still see some of this but it is greatly reduced, mostly just convicts who are from rural regions and are already accustomed to that environment.

phenkdo 7y ago

The "no shortage if you pay enough" viewpoint is rather myopic. The same people will be crying hoarse when prices of even basic necessities increase 10x or more, and there are food riots and possibly starvation. Many people in the west don't realize how good they have it

KarlKemp 7y ago

How are their options today limited by that decision? It’s not like there is some class of expert fruit pickers that was decimated and would take years to train again. Unless they had the power to deny their domestic workforce whatever other opportunities they had that made them unwilling to do farm work, it would have ended in the same spot.