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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsCalifornia Crops Rot as Immigration Crackdown Creates Farmworker Shortage
Vegetable prices may be going up soon, as a shortage of migrant workers is resulting in lost crops in California.
Farmers say they're having trouble hiring enough people to work during harvest season, causing some crops to rot before they can be picked. Already, the situation has triggered losses of more than $13 million in two California counties alone, according to NBC News.
The ongoing battle about U.S. immigration policies is blamed for the shortage. The vast majority of California's farm workers are foreign born, with many coming from Mexico. However, the PEW Research Center reports more Mexicans are leaving the U.S. than coming here.
To make the jobs more attractive, farmers are offering salaries above minimum wage, along with paid time off and 401(k) plans, but even that's not proving enough.
It's unclear exactly how widespread the labor shortage is for farmers throughout the country, which would have a bigger impact on prices consumers pay. Ultimately, drought and flooding have a more significant impact on farms. Low oil prices could also offset any impact of the worker shortage.
http://fortune.com/2017/08/08/immigration-worker-shortage-rotting-crops/?utm_campaign=time&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_medium=social&xid=time_socialflow_twitter
I guess the #MAGA crowd who was so worried about their economic future is too good to pick crops?
BamaRefugee
(3,483 posts)It will now be on the wine list, priced competitively with the Dom Perignon
oasis
(49,389 posts)Ron Obvious
(6,261 posts)... they mean that they can't find people willing to work at the starvation wages they want to pay them. This is frankly the same excuse used by the tech industry to be able to import H1B workers.
BamaRefugee
(3,483 posts)Historically California has always had tons of migrant workers from Mexico to whom starvation wages are like a Wall Street Bonus Check.
Now...hasta la vista Braceros!
ProudLib72
(17,984 posts)We can eat coal, right?
Who are the coal miners going to blame when they can't afford to shop for groceries? Or maybe all those coal miners who lost their jobs under tRump can be bused to the fields to pick crops. It is time for tRump to stage another rally in WV to announce to his supporters their new line of work.
BamaRefugee
(3,483 posts)Achilleaze
(15,543 posts)DU already has a long thread on this in GD started this morning...
https://www.democraticunderground.com/10029434551
sdfernando
(4,935 posts)taking jobs away from U.S. Citizens.
"To make the jobs more attractive, farmers are offering salaries above minimum wage, along with paid time off and 401(k) plans, but even that's not proving enough."
dalton99a
(81,515 posts)AllyCat
(16,189 posts)LIVES RUINED. Horrible administration. Peace to the brace immigrants. I am sorry we got this horrible man.
Achilleaze
(15,543 posts)Farm & food complications now intensifying in response to gross republican stupidity
Thanks a crapload republicans. You are totally making a mess of America.
...Silvas death was the final shove that pushed the contratados into an action unprecedented in modern farm labor history. They organized and protested, and when they were fired for it, they joined Washington states new union for farmworkers, Familias Unidas por la Justicia.
As this article is being written, 120 H-2A workers are sitting in tents on a patch of land near the ranch where they worked, protesting their treatment and demanding rights for guest workers...
http://prospect.org/article/braceros-strike-after-one-worker-dies