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Mexicans Afraid of Being in America Create Farm Worker Shortage – Crops Suffer

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Re: Mexicans Afraid of Being in America Create Farm Worker Shortage – Crops Suffer

#71

Post by [deleted] »

frgtpsswrdlame wrote: post #17
enervate wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably. NPR ran a story on the radio a few years ago about immigrant workers in geogia and how it was difficult to find people for this. Heres a link: https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2011/05/27/136718112...

Hmm, well let's analyze it. So from your link in 2011: In Kathy Lohr's report, she spoke to R.T. Stanley Jr., a farmer who says he can't hire locals to do the job: Stanley says experienced workers can earn as much as $200 a day. He says he's tried to hire locals to do the job — working in the fields eight hours or more clipping, bending and lifting in the oppressive Georgia heat. "They just don't want to do this hard…

[deleted]

Re: Mexicans Afraid of Being in America Create Farm Worker Shortage – Crops Suffer

#72

Post by thriftwy »

philipodonnell wrote: post #59
OliverJones wrote: post #39

For what it's worth, migrant harvest workers have always followed the harvest, in North American moving from north to south in the fall as the frost line moves southward with the season. "Migrant worker" often implies "foreign national", but not necessarily. It's an inconvenient truth of the scaled up agriculture that produces food for us city folk. Many European countries have formal guest-worker programs. A big con…

As painful as the current political environment is, some of these informal patronage relationships may be upset by Trump's inability to be cool about anything except his own industry (real estate). He'll happily throw the farming industry under the bus if it means a tax break for real estate investors and a few political points for being tough on "illegals".

Real estate is usually number two employer for illegals, if not number one. Something doesn't add up.

Re: Mexicans Afraid of Being in America Create Farm Worker Shortage – Crops Suffer

#73

Post by coldtea »

Shortage? That's not how demand and supply works.

Since the job doesn't require any specialization (which could take years to master and thus might cause a shortage), it should be easy to fill such positions from the large unemployment pool if employers started paying more to compensate for the missing Mexicans.

But it's only a shortage of people willing to do the work at shitty prices.

Re: Mexicans Afraid of Being in America Create Farm Worker Shortage – Crops Suffer

#74

Post by elago »

logfromblammo wrote: post #67
rgbrenner wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

GP seems to lean more towards the "human labor is bad" side. Actually no. But farmers have created a special problem for themselves: In a normal industry, wages increase and over a period of time, technology and techniques are developed to reduce the use of labor.. increasing labor productivity and controlling costs. This increased productivity is what allows firms to pay high wages. In the farm industry, this hasn't…

They have a choice now. They can try to soak up the shrinking pool of human laborers as new entrants avoid entering the field, because they don't want to compete with robots. Or they can start building the robots. If they don't seek productivity gains, a well-capitalized startup can eat their lunch by shoving productivity gains from other industries down the throats of agribusinesses. We already have robots that can…

"It's going to end with cereal crop farmers committing suicide"

Do you think cereal crop farmers are paying migrant workers with scythe's to harvest their grain?

"Or they can start building the robots."

What do you think a combine is?

"well-capitalized startup "

Is an angel investor going to compete with government subsidies?

Re: Mexicans Afraid of Being in America Create Farm Worker Shortage – Crops Suffer

#75

Post by coldtea »

emtel wrote: post #68
rgbrenner wrote: post #18

Good. These are some of the worst paying jobs in the country.. because they have used migrants to solve their labor problem, removing the need for them to compete for workers. They need to raise their wages, pay what it really costs for labor. And as a bonus, the increased costs will provide an incentive for future automation.

And presumably the migrants are now earning even less. Which is bad, right?

Depends upon whether you want to perpetuate a subclass that is poorly paid, or have them find a better deal for themselves.

Re: Mexicans Afraid of Being in America Create Farm Worker Shortage – Crops Suffer

#76

Post by lalos »

ikeyany wrote: post #46
lalos wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There may not be a shortage but people would buy less of that produce, prices would go up to cover the higher wages. Unless you subsidize aggressively. Tricky market since people need food to survive.

Is it? How do other countries get produce without cheap illegal immigrant labor?

Cheaper CoL, that's why importing cheap goods from cheap countries and focusing on technology is the bet one should place. That way you have time and resources to spent developing the technology for automating everything. It's like a business, the butcher is not out in the field with the cows he just butchers, separation of concerns.

Re: Mexicans Afraid of Being in America Create Farm Worker Shortage – Crops Suffer

#77

Post by coliveira »

tsomctl wrote: post #28
coliveira wrote: post #23

Crops are not capable of suffering. Another publication that spreads the idea that inanimate things can suffer, while the true suffering is experienced by workers.

Suffer, intransitive verb, definition 2: to sustain loss or damage. ( https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/suffer )

This only shows that the practice is widespread, not that I should go around saying that things suffer, when in fact they cannot do that. This is especially insensitive in a context when there is real human suffering.

Re: Mexicans Afraid of Being in America Create Farm Worker Shortage – Crops Suffer

#78

Post by simonsarris »

knz wrote: post #24
rgbrenner wrote: post #18

Good. These are some of the worst paying jobs in the country.. because they have used migrants to solve their labor problem, removing the need for them to compete for workers. They need to raise their wages, pay what it really costs for labor. And as a bonus, the increased costs will provide an incentive for future automation.

I don't entirely disagree but I also suspect that many Americans would be shocked by the cost of food if workers were paid higher wages (especially if it was done for everyone who touches your food as it travels from the farm to the table) and that most farmers would prefer a phased approach to reform so that crops aren't rotting in the fields.

> many Americans would be shocked by the cost of food if workers were paid higher wages

How do you explain why its so much cheaper to buy quality food in European countries?

When I am in France or Austria, quality butter, eggs, fresh egg pasta, salami, and milk are all very inexpensive. Quality cultured butter in the US is especially expensive. (Mache in the US is also extremely expensive compared to France but that's a demand thing afaik. I don't remember the price diff of spinach.) Even Switzerland had better prices than the US when I was there for quality animal products.

Re: Mexicans Afraid of Being in America Create Farm Worker Shortage – Crops Suffer

#79

Post by knz »

patrickg_zill wrote: post #34
knz wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't entirely disagree but I also suspect that many Americans would be shocked by the cost of food if workers were paid higher wages (especially if it was done for everyone who touches your food as it travels from the farm to the table) and that most farmers would prefer a phased approach to reform so that crops aren't rotting in the fields.

Last time I did this (estimating only the price on the actual farm labor though), I figured out that paying cabbage or lettuce-pickers $20 per hour would result in the farmer paying less than 5 cents more per head, on something that retails in the grocery store for $2.50 or more. Even if you multiply the cost by 5 to cover markup as it goes through the chain (of distribution), you have... $2.50 going to $2.75, or ten…

> ten percent more at retail. Not shocking.

A ten percent increase across an entire grocery bill might be more noticeable though. Likewise with the cost of eating at a restaurant if all workers are paid more (i.e. the $15/hour movement).

Personally I am not opposed to paying the actual costs instead using immigration and government subsidies of crops like soybeans and corn to lower the costs for some farmers.

Re: Mexicans Afraid of Being in America Create Farm Worker Shortage – Crops Suffer

#80

Post by logfromblammo »

elago wrote: post #74
logfromblammo wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They have a choice now. They can try to soak up the shrinking pool of human laborers as new entrants avoid entering the field, because they don't want to compete with robots. Or they can start building the robots. If they don't seek productivity gains, a well-capitalized startup can eat their lunch by shoving productivity gains from other industries down the throats of agribusinesses. We already have robots that can…

"It's going to end with cereal crop farmers committing suicide" Do you think cereal crop farmers are paying migrant workers with scythe's to harvest their grain? "Or they can start building the robots." What do you think a combine is? "well-capitalized startup " Is an angel investor going to compete with government subsidies?

Some pivot irrigators are also robots.

A combine is already well beyond the ability of an individual grain farmer to replicate. The best they can do is buy commoditized combines. And those are only commoditized now because of the vast area devoted to cereal crops. The robots required for more specialized crops will be more expensive at first, until some patents expire, and even then the number of potential competitors will be limited by area under cultivation.

You cannot start a new cereal-crop farm without a hefty investment in capital. You just can't. At best, you would be renting other people's robots, and that might be costly enough to prevent you from ever buying your own.

An onion farmer may yet be able to build a better onion robot. If they do not, someone could invent one, and either eat up existing farmers' margins with rental fees, or simply start a new farm and undercut those existing farmers from lower labor costs. But that startup would need to have the robots.

A trunk-shaker harvester robot might be cheaper than human pickers, but they can damage trees and may cause damage to the harvested fruit. A robot equipped with a camera and a vacuum-assisted hand might outperform it for apples, but be useless for olives. The olive farmer might need a robot with flailing rods. It is still possible for an individual farmer to innovate their own robots specialized to a particular niche crop.

We're already seeing farmers in India committing suicide because they can't keep pace with the gene-edited seeds and robotic combines from industrialized farms. It seems inevitable to me that companies like Monsanto and John Deere will be able to squeeze individual farmers on a technology-yield treadmill such that if they ever miss a step, they fall off. And once they fall off, they can never find a way to get back on. Because they are not the people building the robots. They get left behind just as fast as everyone else not building newer technology.

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