Posted on 08/01/2012 10:28:32 AM PDT by ExxonPatrolUs
The lush rows of Bartlett pear trees appear boundless from where Pasqual Aragon stands. They make his small crew's fruit-picking mission seem impossibly daunting.
"The truth is that there's a lot of work and not enough people," said Aragon, 26, as a dozen men beside him hoisted ladders and stuffed pears into heavy pouches strapped over their shoulders.
California farmers warned for years of a future without enough skilled pickers and packers, of fruits and vegetables rotting in place. Critics accused them of crying wolf to win sympathy for relaxing labor and immigration rules.
This year, however, the evidence seems stronger that the farm workforce is shrinking.
(Excerpt) Read more at mercurynews.com ...
When the welfare state eventually collapses then the farmers will complain about all those lazy liberal arts majors who pick their crops for them.
California has about a 60% greater population density than Mexico. The trick isn't bringing in more people, it is getting the people already there to work.
Like any market there’s always a price. Raise wages so an American not living in an apartment with 15 other illegal workers can afford to take the job. Simple.
Open the immigration limits on the Philippines.
They have a struggling population of 95 million hardworking mostly social-Conservative people, and already the “overseas workforce” of their population is a big part of their economy.
Philippino farm workers (would all speak English already) would either go back and forth as “temporary” workers, or become loyal Americans, but would not be, at any time, a nationalist fifth column of a next door neighbor.
Where are all the illegals who pick the fruit and vegies?
They have moved up the food chain taking jobs legal Americans
will do. That’s why there is ALWAYS a shortage. Illegals have moved up to take YOUR JOB!
If the USDA would stop advertising in Spanish to sign up for food stamps, they’d soon have plenty of workers. Why sweat when you can sit in front of your flat-screen TV in air conditioned comfort?
Caribbean workers would also fit the bill. Most of the farm workers in Southern Ontario hail from that part of the world and many have been doing it for decades, returning home each winter.
Ya have to tell people this?
Just look at the big cities, where millions of them are collecting social services met for Americans, choking off our health care, jails, schools etc...
The farmers ought to go look for help in the big cities where illegals are crawling all over the place. Of course, why would they work for peanuts when biggov gives them coupons, free health care, welfare, etc?
Hell no!
#9 answers that.
One third of all welfare recipients in America are in California. Why would they work when they get everything for free?
Fifteen percent unemployment and there isn’t enough labor.
Seems to me that the dole is just too darn comfortable...
That too, but for much cheaper BTW....Just look what they did to wages in the construction industry...Now, millions occupy the warehouse industry, manufacturing, services, hotels, restaurants, you name it.
All brought to you by a very corrupt government.
I have spent 4 of the last 6 weeks in central CA — farm basket to the nation. It’s a mess. People are standing in the medians asking for hand outs. Unemployment is paying $12 per hour. Crops are drying up in the fields. I drove past an apricot orchard every day (probably belonged to the Ag Dept at CSU-Fresno) and saw no pickers. The trees were heavy with fruit, and the ground underneath was golden with dropped fruit. No pickers. I don’t understand it. If they didn’t want the crop, you’d think that they could have turned the orchard over to The Gleaners, or to Second Harvest.
In Texas 70% of Illegal Aliens Receive Welfare
http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2011/04/in-texas-70-of-illegal-aliens-receive-welfare/
sounds like some enterprising person needs to invent a fruit picking machine
See #9 & 13 for an understanding.
So how do you get them from, say, South LA to the Central Valley? Do they commute 3 hours each way? Do you have a big bus that commutes 3 hours each way?
Are people from South LA going to live in migrant worker housing? Of course not, no matter how much you pay them.
Victor Davis Hanson was talking this so called shortage on a Ricochet podcast. There are tons of children of immigrants who could work the fields but they on are welfare, disability, etc. So these farmers have to bring in a fresh crop of serf labor every few years to make up for the flow into the welfare state. How do these farmers need labor when there is Spanish level unemployment, 20% and above, in the Central Valley of CA.
If this is an Ag school orchard (as I suspect) #9 and #13 doesn’t explain it.
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