Just another "poor immigrant" piece about how America will go down the tube without them.
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus
I agree with you. Wheat harvesting is a major service industry. The rigs they use are big and expensive. I wouldn’t turn that equipment over to a border hopper on a bet.
Just another "poor immigrant" piece about how America will go down the tube without them.
We harvested our entire wheat crop in May without a single illegal alien, but facts do get in the way of a good 'bash the farmer' thread. Funny how most are leary of the media until the article fits an agenda that they want to further.
I have never seen illegals running combines, transporting equipment, or performing full time work at the elevators.
BTW over the last few weeks of cutting the winter wheat, there has been more smiles than frowns after dumping at the equity.
But east of us many got hit with hail and extreme cold which devastated any hope of getting square after the last two years.
What a bunch of absolute non-sense. We have eight combines and the associated rolling stock running wheat harvest, corn harvest and soybean harvest in the Midwest.
Every one of the employees is an American citizen, born here, and only one has a Hispanic background. They make a lot more than $1,800 per month also with group health and life insurance benefits ... as well as being on the payroll 12 months a year with vacation time. To my knowledge in the last 40 years, we have never employed an illegal so we know that it can be done.
When we have someone quit or retire (some are college students), we have several more trying to get on the crew.
Yes you are correct it has been done for a long time without illegal immigrants. About 10 years ago I took part in the harvest run as a LEGAL alien with a temporary guest worker visa better known as the J2 Visa. For 10 months the crew I was with, who were 90% legal aliens and 10% Americans, harvested crops all over the wheat belt. All of the wheat harvesting crews I met had foreigners legally working for them, there wasn’t one illegal or person from south of the border among them.
When the harvest was over all of us went home happy to have had the experience albeit poorly paid but since room and board was included and it was certainly not out of financial necessity we came to the US we were not too bothered. It can fairly be said that we didn’t do it for the pay really just for the experience as we all had to return home to our families and farms as farming is the background the majority of the men and women who come over to do this come from anyway.
I would love to return to Kansas and do another harvest for my old employer but sadly now I have too many other committments and it now looks like I won’t be able to do it anyway if I wished to. Without cheap and legal farm labour then food prices are going to have to rise to pay for the required calibre of home born labour needed to produce it. From what I saw when I was there, the calibre of home born labour available in that part of the country leaves a lot to be desired.
Is “Alan Bjerga”, the author of this piece, writing this because he is an expert in how farms operate ... or is this just another example of agenda-driven drive-by media FUD?
“I hate break it you but American’s know how to harvest wheat.”
And I suspect Americans can pay a bit more than $1800 a month for someone to operate a $300,000 piece of equipment!