If you cannot pick your own crops, you have too much farm.
Pretty broad-brush statement. Are you involved in agriculture?
Not sure you read or understood what I was saying...I am not supporting illegal immigrants. Migrant farm workers have been around for decades...Not sure how they impact agriculture job market, but they move around the country harvesting various crops...They are different from illegal border jumpers....
I do think there is a place for corporate farms...Why? Because few people have the time or space to grow any portion of their own food. Someone has to grow it. Do you grow your own food? Can it, etc.?
With reduced illegal immigration, it is going to cost consumers more for food. Fact...Just like it will cost more for lawn-mowing, roofing, etc. with fewer illegals. Actually, I have no problem with this as I grow a lot of my own food—I have over 30 tomato plants, over 30 squash and cukes, peppers, eggplant, spinach, radish, lettuce/kale/swiss chard, herbs, sunflowers, etc. If I get some egg layers, I would be store-free on bulk of food needs :)
What I was saying in my reply is that to expand harvest capabilities, small farms can and do use WSA...It is difficult to harvest enough acreage to make a family farm profitable if you only have one or two people doing it. From what I have seen, small family farms have difficult time affording high cost of automation.
WSA working share...family farms are doing that. It is one of the ways that family farms survive.
I am planning on buying a farmette & spouse is in ag, so I have learned a few things and continue learning by talking to family farmers and researching the subject...Here in IL, which has some of the best land for farming, it is not easy to make it work, and many if not most family farmers are utilizing multiple marketing opportunities (farm stand, farmer market, selling to restaurants/stores, CSA and WSA shares). They often if not always have one or more of the owners keeping their day job.
With reduced illegal immigration, it is going to cost consumers more for food. Fact
NOT A FACT! Many consumers will PAY LESS for food after lower immigration. The Free Republic economists have me here to keep them honest. lol. Book "Economics in One Lesson" says look far and wide for the answer.
My automobile was stolen and garage was robbed multiple times because of illegals. Honestly, I know folks who had 6 cars stolen by illegals. Yes 6. So looking far and wide, people can lose $10k to $50k, plus adding other costs like welfare, college, for illegals, and so on.
$50k dollars buys A LOT OF FOOD! So no, LESS ILLEGAL ALIENS equals CHEAPER FOOD.
Republicans always fail to find the right argument.
IDEAL - The farmer wants the same as a merchant. He wants a cashier whose lives in a cardboard box behind his store, because that is the cheapest labor. The farmer wants homeless wanderers living in a tent city, but bussed in for harvest. As long as they can do the work.
However, there are hidden costs for wanderers. When the full cost is known, the illegal costs more. The business costs are just SHIFTED to obscure areas.
Even roofing and lawn mowing are more expensive when the additional $10s of thousands of dollars are accounted for. People do not want to do the mental work seeking out the hidden costs that exist elsewhere. Politics works, because they use a simple but incorrect premise, that the only costs are the immediate mentioned.
Also, I suspect the family farm dilemma, has its source elsewhere, hidden in big govt somewhere. That is where the root problem often resides, in some monopoly granted by the State, to knock off the competition. Good bye Grandpa farmer.
It would be fun to buy food directly from the farm. But storage is the next problem. Therefore like Amazon or EBay, I could see the day when farms do sell their product DIRECTLY to the consumer. During harvest, food pre bought, even shipped. All that is required is an incredible website. Maybe when I retire, create the first farm to consumer trade market. The entire harvest could be pre-sold before harvest.