HuffPo sticks nose in Ag

[r3020]

Hey BA you would think the orchard owner would have raised it to $40/hr then he could have recouped some of his loses. Oh, I forgot, the FSA office probably kicked in with some disaster payment and he wound up making a fortune.

[jennys_mn]

When doing something labor intensive, like picking crops, you quickly get to a point, where you price yourself out of the market. No one gives a damn if it costs you 4.00 a bushel to grow corn, when you can buy it boated in for 3.75. It's more like that. Why pick it, when no one will buy it? Or, you know that every cherry you pick, costs you in the end to have it done?

Tick Tock...

Jen

[NewAgJudge]

" I cant believe that monster ate my face !!" - says woman who voted for face eating monster.

[NewAgJudge]

I agree that a guinea pig farmer is hardly representative of ag, but what other things are wrong ?

[BA Deere]

🙂  a lot of this is dairies, orchards, vegetable farms have a big percentage of their cost as labor and if there`s a big pool to choose from, the more they cut their bottomline.  More $$$ in their pocket and to hell with the rest of us.  The Mexicans work cheap in June and July picking cherries, but then to hell with them too until next June, "let the taxpayers care for them and their families the other 10 months of the year.   I bet you do the math on it, it would be cheaper for the taxpayers to pay American workers $100/hr for those 2 months of the year and just donate it to the cherry farmer, instead of taking care of entire Mexican families 10 months of the year.

[jennys_mn]

What, no smart as s rebuttal? Because, you know I'm right. The crops, especially with something as perishable as fruit crops, are better to wither and die on the branch, than have a bunch of money tied up in the picking, processing and packaging, and then you get to pay to dispose of all of it.

No - the crops won't get picked. Fruits and vegetables will double, or more, in the store, as the crops rot on the vine. But that's OK, we have lots of cheap processed sugar to feed these people. They'll be happy, and we can kick the health problems can down the road.

Fruit and vegetable owners will be exonerated from the price increase, because of a "shortage", and prices then will stay at that level.

Just like the multiple oil crises, "We're running out of oil! We must triple the price at the pump!" And then, we have 1, one mind you, well in the gulf, that without pumping, spews billions of BARRELS of oil,

The difference? The owner of a well can cap it, the oil in the ground is not going to degrade. The orchard owner, his crop is going to be unsaleable in just a couple of days. And, they just won't be available. Wait until we find that's the case for most of our fruits and veggies, unless we get them trucked in, from guess where? Mexico. Or maybe we won't, because Mexico would rather have their crop rot in the vine, than shipping it to the US.

Keep whacking the hornets nest, Donnie, you're doing a GREAT job!

Tick Tock....

Jen

[BA Deere]

What, American Negroes expect a 4 star hotel, when we put up 40 Mexicans in one trailerhouse??? Man, them Negroes are really getting uppity these days    

I still believe there`s enough blonde,  blue eyed Michigan college kids that would take a $20/hr cherry picking job...if the greedy orchard owner would REALLY pay that.  But they figure why pay $20 if some dodgy Mexicans will do it for $8?

I don`t think many people want to go to prison, there`s a button in everyone`s stomach that will incite work when that button gets hungry.  It`s just we haven`t triggered anyone`s hunger button yet, any mention of it a Pelosi is on tv with tears of mascara streaming down her face.

But, slap a tariff on imported cherries to equal what it would cost a Michigan grower to hire blonde kids for $20 or $25/hr.  And consumers that have been spending 10% of their income on food would then have to pay a couple bucks more per box of cherries, however it would reflect the ACTUAL cost of producing those cherries.

As far as Teachers, they are the best people on earth, it`s a tough job especially these days.  That doesn`t change the fact they are the best paid in the community (which is fine) but the fact is, if we can`t get teachers at $50,000/yr, we raise it to $65,000 or whatever...we pay what it takes to get teachers.  And that should be the same economics of hiring cherry pickers, they need picked so you hire what you need to or find another crop.

[NewAgJudge]

Have you ever hired anyone or have been hired by anyone like ever ???

[r3020]

If the people of this country are so pathetic they won't pick cherries for $20/hr then we are doomed.

[jennys_mn]

It's NOT the picking of them for $20.00 - it's the selling of them for $8.00 a pound that's the issue. I won't buy cherries if they are much more than $3.00 a pound - they stay on the grocers shelf, till they die, and are thrown out. Then the grocer won't even stock them next year, because he doesn't have anyone that will buy them.

It's a difficult situation, to be sure. It's why my sisters and I were "kept" by my grandparents - so we could be cheap labor on the farm for years. If you didn't work - you didn't eat. Today, we would've been taken away, and put in the custody of someone else. I knew a fellow that had a wood cutting business, that was doing that to his kids. That's how he was raised. The kids complained, and the father was given a restraining order, preventing him from even speaking about going out and working with him.

And you'll come back, and say, "See- see, that's the problem right there!!"

No, sorry, the problem is using the labor of a captive work force, that doesn't want to do it, and forcing them to do it against their will. And then, like in my case, not even being given any credit for doing it.

You think these problems are so easy - they're not. But you won't see that.

Tick Tock....

Jen