Posted on 05/27/2012 1:02:28 PM PDT by thecodont
Skip Foppiano of Morada Produce is praying for cool weather. The San Joaquin County grower and packer is thick into cherry harvest season and is short on labor - 20 to 30 percent fewer pickers than he had last year.
If it gets too hot, his smaller-than-usual workforce won't have time to get all the cherries off the trees before they rot. Farmers across California are experiencing the same problem: Seasonal workers who have been coming for decades to help with the harvest, planting and pruning have dropped off in recent years. With immigration crackdowns, an aging Mexican population, drug wars at the border and a weakened job market in the United States, the flow of migrants has stopped and may actually have reversed, according to the Pew Hispanic Center, a nonprofit, nonpartisan public policy research firm that has been studying the trend.
"We're scrambling," Foppiano said, adding that he's also experiencing a labor shortage in Fresno, where he owns additional cherry orchards. "It's a hard time. And I'm hearing lots of other growers complaining about it."
[...]
California has yet to calculate its losses, but Bryan Little, director of labor affairs for the state's Farm Bureau Federation, said some asparagus growers have already had to disc up their fields because there weren't enough pickers.
"You would think with the unemployment rate being what it is, people here would take these jobs," Little said. "But Americans have self-selected away from this kind of work. It's not because the pay is low. It's because the work is hard.
"I thought we might have five to 10 years to fix this labor shortage problem," he said. "Now, we might not."
Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2012/05/26/BUAK1OLQ31.DTL&ao=2#ixzz1w6O8hkvj
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
End unemployment and other government handouts and they will have plenty of labor.
Free market solution.
Labor is a commodity and is subject to the laws of supply and demand.
Half the homes in the United States are receiving government aid of some kind...
Duh.
If we want workers, we have to change society so that those people who do not work will end up with miserable (yes: miserable) lives.
We insist on being nice. We just don't want anyone to suffer. We want everyone to be "equal" -- and then we look around and wonder why so many people just don't see any reason to make much of a contribution to society. Why make an effort? What's the point??
In case it's not clear: higher wages for farm workers MIGHT attract some more labor, but that misses the point. Some people just don't care about the wages. They enjoy the fact that they don't need to work. An incentive to work isn't going to change them. A disincentive for sitting on their ass -- that would change them real quick.
MECHANIZE!
Put up a DARPA type contest fund to the school or company that can come up with a mechanical cherry harvester.
Same for Tomatoes (Should be easy, designs were nearly ready when Kali. pulled funding).
Or bring back the chain gangs.
Either way, eliminate “migrant labor” and the reliance on illegals.
What agGreat job for America’s unemployed yutes.... Oh wait, that would mean actually working. Never mind. My Bad.
Are there no prisons? Are there no union work houses?
“There won’t be enough farm labor in Wahington!”
The media follows up onm it’s earlier Big Lie:
“There won’t be enough farm labor in Georgia!”
Of course they’ll never report that everything worked out in Washington just like they never reported that everything worked out in Georgia.
It’s not their job to inform, the big money is in hysteria and manipulation- that’s what their audience: advertisers- pay for.
I suspect he’s looking for the easy route. Never mind the fact that the state is overrun with illegals, he needs to import some more “guest workers”.
yeah, because they are all driving garbage trucks, roofers,repairing roads,working in supermarkets,lawn care business owners,cab drivers,gas stations attendants/repair,..and if you check, in larger municipalities as school maintenance/janitorial services, casino employees....so stick your asparagus stalks...
Please don’t throw that comment around so frivolously. My military retirement and my Dad’s Social Security, which he paid for, is a part of the percentage.
I am sure San Joaquin County has a welfare office and issues food stamps...there is a ready pool of labor....and they do not have to travel like Okies did...should be right around a country corner...
I don’t even mind if they continue to collect food stamps, wages being what they are and farm work being temporary...but it gets done, this way...
Get rid of the labor laws that don’t allow kids to work!
Santa Rosa, California, early 1960”s, the fall school opening was delayed because the prune orchards were harvested by high school kids!
there are a lot of unemployed Americans out there, you might have to pay them at least minimumwage though.
If your business expanded due to illegal labor being used, then your business should contract for the same.
Anyone on govenment welfare should be first in line to help.
That’s what teenagers are for.
AS many have noted in here send some of the able bodied ones currently getting welfare and already in Calif
BUT one thing these lying Libs NEVER mentione there is an UNLIMITED visa for agri workers, as many as one needs. NO limit
so all this whining is just that
whining
Maybe asparagus shouldn’t be grown in America then. Let Mexico do it and we’ll import it. Because it is NOT worth the long -term costs of illegal alien anchor babies and the billions of dollars in welfare, food stamps, education, incarceration and health care they consume every year.
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