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

This was the first Google result I found - https://www.vox.com/2014/7/6/5874499/map-heres-how-much-ever...

In 2014 the US was spending ~ 6.5% of household expenditure on food, on the lower end compared to the listed European nations (Germany, France, Italy, and Greece in particular).

There are many other links with a similar premise.

My own travels have taken me to Spain, Denmark, France, Germany, England, Australia, New Zealand, Vietnam, and Canada - other than Vietnam I've always found prices to be comparable or greater than in the US. Obviously the cost is influenced by what you are buying, what is in season, and where you are a shopping. YMMV though!

maybe to those poor the current system was the best available way of making money? if it wasn't, surely they would find something better. have you asked them whether they were actually exploited or did you just assume?

I'm wondering if higher wages would end up happening in practice. It's entirely possible that if labor costs go up here, it will make produce farmed elsewhere (Mexico, Central America, even overseas) more price competitive. I think trade is more likely to occur before automation. Harvesting many things is quite difficult from a robotics standpoint, every fruit/vegetable is slightly different and requires rather fine grained feedback systems to ensure you don't bruise the thing. Not impossible, but not easy/cheap.

It's also hard to recruit workers to a gig that's temporary and seasonal. That can maybe be made up for in wages though.

I'm also curious about where the labor is required. Corn/wheat is mostly a machine based harvest, I assume there are few migrant workers there but I don't know. Is there analysis on where migrants end up on the value chain of farm products?

Also, while there's some talk of undocumented immigrants, I think there's also a legal seasonal-labor system in the US. Trump famously uses it to staff Mar-a-lago. How many migrant farm workers are under that system?

How in the world did you get your numbers? Can I see some math please?

For full disclosure: I've worked about 15 years in hospitality industry and have quite a few work acquaintances in supply chain, as well as chefs and restauranteurs.

Most folks that are commenting here are living in la-la land with some of the absolutely absurd math and opinion that do not tie into reality.

Lets get some baselines going before I unpack the horse shit being said here.

1. Which agricultural concentration has the most migrant/day laborers? Citrus[0] and other labor intensive crops (sugar cane, corn, cotton, etc.) hire the majority of migrant labor. Majority (78%)[1] of seasonal agricultural jobs are performed by folks who are not from the Unite States.

2. What is the average profit margin, per acre, for agricultural farms (that sells for human consumption)? It's shit [2] - like most freaking farms are barely making it...Farms that have a GCFI (Gross Cash Farm Income) of 5,000,000+ should be doing well, however, about 25% of them are in the critical zone of going out of business. Farms with a GCFI less then 500,000. But hey, maybe that government agency has their head up their ass and don't know shit. Lets take a look at studies by Purdue University and Department of Agriculture and Consumer Economics University of Illinois[4]. To make life easier, heres a summary: according to Purdue estimates, on average, farmland has $114 to $227 return per acre. University of Illinois project returns from $200 to $100 per acre.

3. What is the general wage for Migrant Worker? From [5] this study on an orange farm,workeers can expect $16.92/hr that operate machinery and $13.75/hr for general purpose.

4. What percent of overhead is labor? [5] Page 9. Labor accounts for 41% of overhead for an orange farm. This is a industry standard for all labor intensive agriculture production [6], which are listed as: fruits, vegetables, and nursery products.

Great, now that we have some baselines. Lets dig into some math.

According to a previously mentioned study [5], an orange farm that has been established for 10+ years can expect 550 packed cartons of oranges, that weight 37.5 pounds. This represents 80% of the annual crop. The rest of the crop is used for juices and fillers. That 20% accounts for an astronomic $0 return. In most cases, breaking even is considered a win.

Focusing on the 80% of the crop that does bring in money, what are the economics? (this is taken from Ref Doc #5, page 22) It's shit! How shit? well, if the average cost of a carton of oranges is $12 and you gather 700 cartons per acre, your NET RETURN PER ACRO ABOVE TOTAL COST is -1,156...huh? Wait, you just lost money...

How about if we take that number up a notch and sell our beautiful oranges at $15/carton? Well, on 700 cartons gathered per acre you have now achieved profitability of 944 per acre.

But how does this affect the consumer? Well, my curious conversant, a 5lb bag of Navel Oranges is currently selling for $6.48 at Walmart[7]. For comparison, a store in Illinois is selling 4lb bags of oranges for $3/per[8].

So a carton of oranges is being sold, at the highest range of the study [5] is $15/carton. A carton is 37.5 pounds, which means I can get a bit more then 9 bags of 4lb orange bags, that I will sell for $3/per. Which means I will generate a gross of $27/carton.

After reading this, please, do tell me again, how raising wages to $20/hr is going to cause lettuce to go from 2.50 to 2.75?

[0] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-immigration-farms/agr...

[1] http://nfwm.org/education-center/farm-worker-issues/farm-wor...

[2] https://www.ers.usda.gov/amber-waves/2015/januaryfebruary/pr...

[3] http://agribusiness.purdue.edu/blog/understanding-the-margin...

[4] http://www.farmdoc.illinois.edu/manage/2015_crop_budgets.pdf

[5] https://coststudyfiles.ucdavis.edu/uploads/cs_public/19/d4/1...

[6] https://www.ers.usda.gov/topics/farm-economy/farm-labor/

[7] https://www.walmart.com/ip/Navel-Oranges-5-lbs-Bag/44391069

[8] http://waynesmarket.net/shop/247-4-lb-bag-navel-oranges.html

A portion of those migrants will start a farm back home and start exporting it back. This will just drive up exports and do nothing to increase wages. Depending on another country for food puts more risk on national security.