'The whole thing is screwed up': Farmers in deep-red Pennsylvania struggle to find workers

[Tumbulu]

68. In California Farm Workers average that pay plus must be offered medical benefits

Last edited Mon Sep 15, 2025, 04:09 PM - Edit history (1)

if there are more than 20 workers- not sure the exact number- so forgive if I have mistaken this minimum.

Here in CA, where most of the farm labor of the nation actually is, it is not a matter of underpaying people- at least around here (average pay at the vineyards is $35/hr with benefits and 401K's etc)- it is a matter of skill and actually ability to do this kind of work.

It does not matter how hard you try to teach people how to do this work, it takes literally years to learn any of these jobs, and much of that learning must be hands on apprenticeship style. This is highly skilled labor. Which also requires enormous endurance and strength along with mechanical know how.

The insulting idea that keeps getting told is that anyone can do it. Which disrespects the workers and agriculture in general.

How lucky people are that for so long the people with these skills and physical strength came to do this very hard work. With documentation or not. During the pandemic they were all treated as hero's around here, at least. They were classified as “essential workers” and got the vaccines as early as the medical professionals. The larger organic farms in this area organized that with the state (organic produce requires more labor than conventional and the long time organic farms hire workers full time - not as a migrant workforce that moves around to get work).

I have never understood why anyone in the ag world ever supported the creep, but mainly the conventional farmers do. It is some sort of cultural thing that I have yet to get a grasp of.