Why does the US need to be an agricultural nation?

[jay gw]

This relates to the illegal immigrant workforce that farmers in the US claim they so "desperately" need, and the claim that existing agricultural worker visa laws are ineffective.

Other than the argument "there's an existing industry so keep it alive regardless of what it takes" - is there any particular reason the US needs to be an agricultural product producing nation?

[Mashuna]

This relates to the illegal immigrant workforce that farmers in the US claim they so "desperately" need, and the claim that existing agricultural worker visa laws are ineffective.

Other than the argument "there's an existing industry so keep it alive regardless of what it takes" - is there any particular reason the US needs to be an agricultural product producing nation?

Are you looking for a different answer than: so there's food for people to eat?

[bob_kark]

Are you looking for a different answer than: so there's food for people to eat?
How about because farmers like to make money?

[Marc L]

I like both reasons, personally. It's nice being able to produce your own stuff and not have to import it. It's cheaper, both productionwise and in the grocery store.

Not to mention if we weren't an agricultural nation, we couldn't claim "amber waves of grain" in our patriotic music.

Marc

[RandFan]

This relates to the illegal immigrant workforce that farmers in the US claim they so "desperately" need, and the claim that existing agricultural worker visa laws are ineffective.

Other than the argument "there's an existing industry so keep it alive regardless of what it takes" - is there any particular reason the US needs to be an agricultural product producing nation? There is much that humanity can do without. There are only a few things that we absolutely can't do without. Food is a vitally important and politically powerful commodity. It would be difficult for me to think of many worst ways we could shoot ourselves in the foot beside getting rid of our agricultural industry.

That said, you are conflating two different things. There is no evidence that we could not produce food in surplus without migrant farmers.

[slingblade]

@Mocha: Excuse me? Turn our food production over to another country?

The mind boggles.

[joe1347]

Besides, with most manufacturing is shifting to Asia, we (the USA) need to be prepared to enter our post-industrial agricultural era.

[Mycroft]

Personally I like the idea of not depending on other nations for food.

[fuelair]

This relates to the illegal immigrant workforce that farmers in the US claim they so "desperately" need, and the claim that existing agricultural worker visa laws are ineffective.

Other than the argument "there's an existing industry so keep it alive regardless of what it takes" - is there any particular reason the US needs to be an agricultural product producing nation?
Security _ it's the reason we need to be agriculturally, industrially, militarillly, economically, etc. as self-sufficient as possible. In a largely peaceful world without religious or political nut cases, that would not be true but that's not the world we have.
:(

[WildCat]

Don't expect MC to make another appearance in this thread. His MO is to start w/ provocative statements, then abandon it.

[Rob Lister]

Of course, the forgotten answer is: to feed the world. A good quantity of our 'amber waves of grain' go to just that purpose.

[pipelineaudio]

no, america only steals food from the world, and never helps other countries, except to provide troops for our colonies of course

(speaking for flame and run MC in the likely event he does not return)

[jay gw]

There is no evidence that we could not produce food in surplus without migrant farmers.

Except the farmers that tell me they can't.

[RandFan]

:rolleyes:Except the farmers that tell me they can't. Well damn. Now that's evidence. Indirect and anecdotal. Wow. I guess I'm going to now have to take Sylvia Browne's word for it that she can talk to dead people. At least that's not third party evidence.

[pipelineaudio]

farmers huh?

Most of the farms are gone now, replaced by bigger companies who own LOTS of farms

Small farms are scarce. I would find it more likely that these giant farm companies are looking to maximize thier profits by hiring illegals

We SHOULD make damn sure enough have work visas...instead we would rather have them break in

[UserGoogol]

Besides, with most manufacturing is shifting to Asia, we (the USA) need to be prepared to enter our post-industrial agricultural era.

Why can't we just be a purely service based economy? That seems to be what most people who talk about post-industrial society suppose, and is the direction things have historically been moving in.

[jay gw]

Well damn. Now that's evidence. Indirect and anecdotal. Wow. I guess I'm going to now have to take Sylvia Browne's word for it that she can talk to dead people. At least that's not third party evidence.

So you provided evidence farmers can do without illegal immigrant labor? Please repost it, I missed that.

[RandFan]

So you provided evidence farmers can do without illegal immigrant labor? Please repost it, I missed that.Oops, I guess you don't know how things work around here. Ok, I'll fill you in but first let's look at what I said.

RandFan
There is no evidence that we could not produce food in surplus without migrant farmers. You are the one who claimed that we needed migrant farmers. This means that it is your claim. In any event, producing food requires humans to plant, irrigate and harvest food. We have plenty of people for that. We just need to motivate them to do the work. That just takes money. What reason to you have to suppose that we couldn't harvest our food without cheap migrant labor? It would just mean that large corporations would make less money and perhaps the price of our produce would go up.

[hammegk]

... is there any particular reason the US needs to be an agricultural product producing nation?
Why yes, yes there is. It's so fumduck trolls can ask truly stupid questions on the internet.

[pipelineaudio]

Why can't we just be a purely service based economy? That seems to be what most people who talk about post-industrial society suppose, and is the direction things have historically been moving in.

Because "service" jobs are going to illegal invaders faster than agricultural ones now. It is just a different face on the same problem. We need to find a way for americans to make money, or the invaders will make us as poor off as in their home country.

We NEED to find a way to make Mexico better.

until recently, smug rich white people figured their jobs were safe, and only stupid brown and black people, and white trash had anything to fear, and who cares about them.

Smug rich white people both left and right ( Yes the left is famous for making excuses for them but dont pretend for a second the right arent bringing them in just as fast) didnt mind making their poor neighbors suffer, since they could get cheaper daycare (what kind of piece of crap parent would entrust their child to a criminal?), cheaper food, cheaper lawncare etc.

Now smug rich white people are losing their jobs as well, since there is no bottom to hold up the economy any longer

NOW theyre making a big deal about it

Lets make mexico better!

For those who havent been there, it is one of the most beautiful places in the world, from tropical beaches to almost alpine mountains to forrests and painted deserts, the stuff art is made from. Their tourist industry is pitifully underatended

their eco tourist industry is just pathetic! SO MANY more people could go on eco tours, pumping some dollars into the economy.

Mexican guitars and other instruments come from entire familes, sometimes even whole villages that build nothing else. Yes we see some cheap imports, but handmade mexican acoustic guitars are on parallel with anything anywhere.

Lots of things we and mexico could do to help and a rising tide should lift all boats...Unfortunately, there as here a very few wealthy people control masses of the poor, its a lot like how we have it in the USA, but exaggerated a LOT.

So, smug rich, white people, instead of using your money to hurt your fellow americans, how bout spending some of your excess DIRECTLY on the mexican economy?

[geni]

I like both reasons, personally. It's nice being able to produce your own stuff and not have to import it. It's cheaper, both productionwise and in the grocery store.


If the farmers claim is to be belived then if the stuff was produced legaly then imported stuff would be cheaper.

[Darth Rotor]

We NEED to find a way to make Mexico better.

*brainstorm*
Invade it, blow a whole bunch of stuff up, and let Haliburton make some money, and hire locals this time, rebuilding it. The nation has oil. Few Muslims whack jobs. The cost per long ton for supporting this "saving Mexico from itself" should be lower than Iraq, since it is closer.

Call Speaker Pelosi, here's a live "out of the box" idea! :p

DR

[pipelineaudio]

I sure wouldnt mind just targeting the goverment there

[jay gw]

You are the one who claimed that we needed migrant farmers.

No I didn't. I said farmers have told me they cannot do business without them.

[pipelineaudio]

which farmers?

[Francesca R]

There is no evidence that we could not produce food in surplus without migrant farmers.Agreed. My guess is that it's cheaper to hire illegal labour, even net of the expected cost of penalty (if there is one)

In any event, producing food requires humans to plant, irrigate and harvest food. We have plenty of people for that. We just need to motivate them to do the work. That just takes money. What reason to you have to suppose that we couldn't harvest our food without cheap migrant labor? It would just mean that large corporations would make less money and perhaps the price of our produce would go up.[My italics].
That's where competition would probably make the exercise fail IMO, unless enforcable laws are passed that hobble the competition.

[RandFan]

No I didn't. I said farmers have told me they cannot do business without them. ?

That's what we call a distinction without a difference.

[RandFan]

Agreed. My guess is that it's cheaper to hire illegal labour, even net of the expected cost of penalty (if there is one)

[My italics].
That's where competition would probably make the exercise fail IMO, unless enforcable laws are passed that hobble the competition.Good post. I agree.

[casebro]

which farmers?

Fruit and vegetable farmers mostly. Grain farming is heavily mechanised, meat doesn't use lots of labor since animals will come to the trough. But the fruits and veggies need lots of manual labor, which the college educated masses think is beneath them. A couple years ago the local strawberry growers had to pay $14 per hour for pickers. Talk about stoop labor- my back aches just thinking about picking strawberries.

So, we need to make Mexico better, but we also have to put a stop to telling Americans that manual labor is somehow a less honorable way to earn a living. This when most of the crasftsmen I know have college degrees in unrelated fields. Perhaps we need to issue BS degrees in "Agricultural Environmental Maintenance Science"? I do know one guy with a Doctorate in "Manual Arts" though. He won't pick strawberrys either.

Or maybe we should have green buses line up at the schools to take the drop-outs directly to the fields? Get the disruptive, un-educatable students out of the classrooms? But that would make the principals look bad when the "numbers of students planning to go to college" drops.

[Pescado]

Not that it proves anything that hasn't already been stated in this thread, but according to a statistics project I did last year there is a ~95% correlation between California agricultural output and legal Mexican immigration to California. The project didn't incorporate illegal immigration numbers for obvious reasons, but I imagine that legal and illegal immigration numbers probably follow similar year-to-year patterns. I realize that it is probably the case that the predicted crop yield for the year is what determines the amount of visas that the feds allow. Can anyone confirm this?

The reason I bring this up is that it is evidence that the government thinks that these people are necessary to agriculture, and the vast majority of legal Mexicans to California are employed in agriculture. If there was a significant number of willing Americans to do the job, I don't think that there'd be a 95% relationship between Mexican immigration to California and California agricultural output.

Some in this thread have mentioned that Americans need to 'get over' their 'being above' doing physical labor like working in agriculture. However, I think it probably has very little to do with being 'above' the work and more to do with fearing the work for good reason. Having lived in the densely agricultural San Joaquin Valley(Steinbeck country), all of my life, with friends whose parents have always been field workers and also friends whose parents own the land, I can say that picking crops is a very, very difficult and hazardous job. Around here, the only people besides Mexicans that will dare do it are refugee Hmong people from Laos, which there is also a large population of. The children of both groups shun the work done by their parents. They know first hand how hard it is, having spent a childhood in the fields, and they know that they do not want to do it.

People often assume that Mexicans are pushing Americans out of agricultural jobs that they have historically done by working for lower wages, or whatever. However, let's remember that in the past 70 years, at least in California's ag country, there has been group after group that have suffered hardships in other places and come to California to work the fields, needing a wage no matter how hard the work. In the 1930's, with the Great Depression, people flowed up and down the west coast, working any land they could be hired to work. Also in the 1930's the Dust Bowl traumatized the rural United States and people who were referred to as Okies immigrated en masse to California, hoping to fill the ag jobs that were no longer available in their own areas. Okies (from whom I descend) were hated in much the same way that Mexicans are hated today, and for similar reasons. They came in, looking for the same work that the Mexicans are doing today. By the 1960s Mexicans had started doing the work, which they continue to do until this day. There were no more Okies to do it, after all.

My point is that while it may seem like it is new for Americans to not be willing to work these fields, and it is in a certain one-dimensional way, for the past 70 years (maybe more; I am not familiar with California ag history before that) the biggest reason Americans worked the fields in California was due to some outside circumstance forcing them to, be it the Great Depression or the Dust Bowl. However, I can't think of a time when the local populations in California ever thought that 'field hand' was a good enough job to keep, no matter what time period they lived in. Today's hubub is just the same dance with a different costume. Instead of everybody hating the Okies they are hating the Mexicans. In both cases it is merely market forces at work.

@Casebro: Where are you from? $14/hour is an odd wage for strawberry pickers around here. Not just because that is more than pickers make on average(though it is probably 2x the amount they make here), but also because I haven't heard of an hourly wage for field workers before. In my experience at least, you are paid by the load, not by the hour, to increase productivity. Were they just regular strawberries? Or was it organic or premium strawberries that had a higher-than-average profit margin?

[RandFan]

My point is that while it may seem like it is new for Americans to not be willing to work these fields, and it is in a certain one-dimensional way, for the past 70 years (maybe more; I am not familiar with California ag history before that) the biggest reason Americans worked the fields in California was due to some outside circumstance forcing them to, be it the Great Depression or the Dust Bowl. However, I can't think of a time when the local populations in California ever thought that 'field hand' was a good enough job to keep, no matter what time period they lived in. There is nothing inherently different between American's and Mexicans. The only difference is circumstance. If there were no Mexicans to exploit the price of crops would increase until Americans were willing to take up working in the fields.

[Pescado]

Absolutely agree with you, RandFan. Like I said, it's all just market forces.

However, while that is technically true, before the wage would ever get high enough for Americans to take the jobs, the American agricultural industry would probably no longer be competitive.

[RandFan]

Absolutely agree with you, RandFan. Like I said, it's all just market forces.

However, while that is technically true, before the wage would ever get high enough for Americans to take the jobs, the American agricultural industry would probably no longer be competitive.Very possible but bear in mind that the American agricultural industry produces much of the worlds food. Eliminating it would put pressure on the other sources that likely couldn't even keep up with demand driving up prices and making agriculture more lucrative.

It's not a simple equation.

[Pescado]

Right again, old chap. There's no easy answer.

Also, in my post, perhaps I wasn't clear, but I was trying to allude to the fact that the only reason anybody is taking these crap jobs is because of externalities, even the Mexicans. Everybody hates the jobs, even the Mexicans that so readily take them. The Okies had the Dust Bowl, the Mexicans have their current national situation. That's why the kids of field workers (like my girlfriend) would never work in the fields themselves on any kind of long-term basis. The externalities are much different for the children of field workers.

[jay gw]

KINSTON, N.C. — In the plainspoken manner common to her fellow farmers, Faylene Whitaker has a message for members of Congress struggling to overhaul the nation's immigration law.

"We would rather use legal workers," said Ms. Whitaker, who grows tobacco, tomatoes and other crops on the 500-acre farm she and her husband own in the Piedmont region of North Carolina. But "if we don't get a reasonable guest worker program we are going to hire illegals."

Ms. Whitaker knows what she is talking about. Indeed, she is one of the few farmers in the United States to employ legal immigrant guest workers.

When immigration rules were last overhauled in 1986 — legalizing more than three million unlawful immigrants and supposedly banning the employment of illegal workers in the future — Congress allowed for a vast seasonal guest worker plan. It was intended to ensure that farmers could continue to get the cheaper foreign labor they wanted, but in a legally acceptable way.

It has not worked out. Despite expectations that growers would flock to the guest worker program, named H-2A, it never took off: fewer than 25,000 farm workers came to the United States on temporary guest worker visas in 2004, the last year with figures available.

It is not as if growers do not need the foreign labor: according to farmers' own estimates, about 70 percent of the 1.2 million hired workers tilling fields and picking crops are illegal immigrants.

"The punch line is, guest workers are going to cost you more money," said Phil Martin, professor of agricultural and resource economics at the University of California, Davis. For a guest worker program to work, he added, "the prerequisite is you have to have illegal immigration under control."

http://travel2.nytimes.com/2006/03/23/business/23guest.html?n=Top%2FReference%2FTimes%20Topics%2F People%2FP%2FPorter%2C%20Eduardo

[casebro]

@Casebro: Where are you from? $14/hour is an odd wage for strawberry pickers around here. Not just because that is more than pickers make on average(though it is probably 2x the amount they make here), but also because I haven't heard of an hourly wage for field workers before. In my experience at least, you are paid by the load, not by the hour, to increase productivity. Were they just regular strawberries? Or was it organic or premium strawberries that had a higher-than-average profit margin?

In San Diego county. Perhaps the piece work came out to $14 per hour? The same article mentioned that the farmer netted $70,000 per acre. Perhaps strawberry prices peaked that year? The dirt is worth millions of dollars an acre for developement, yet they grow veggies in it. It's a prop 13 anomaly to not use actual market value, but the price your papa paid for it a generation ago. Or maybe agricultural use, about $2,500 per? But the grand kids will be rich.- inspite of labor problems.

[Pescado]

Interesting. Around my parts the Hmong have cornered the market on strawberry growing, I think. At least they are the only people I see growing them usually. A large extended family will buy a smallish piece of land, live communally in a big house, and just have the family network work the land themselves, with as little outside help as possible, which usually means no outside help.

They sell the strawberries directly to consumers at roadside stands next to the fields and at farmers' markets, as well as in larger quantities of course. I assume they split the profits between family members, but I am not sure how that breaks down.

[luchog]

We NEED to find a way to make Mexico better.

No, we don't. The Mexicans need to find a way to make Mexico better. Instead, they're just coming up here illegally and scaming our system.

Lots of things we and mexico could do to help and a rising tide should lift all boats...Unfortunately, there as here a very few wealthy people control masses of the poor, its a lot like how we have it in the USA, but exaggerated a LOT.
(...)
So, smug rich, white people, instead of using your money to hurt your fellow americans, how bout spending some of your excess DIRECTLY on the mexican economy?
Because it doesn't matter f*ckall whether we spend it there directly, or whether they take it home through illegal employment in the US. The end result is the same, f*ckall.

The situation in Mexico will not be improved until the Mexicans themselves improve it. That means ousting their government and it's massive corruption, and making it possible for small businessmen, craftsmen, and family-farms to run on a profitable basis, or indeed run at all without having to bankrupt themselves paying graft to bureaucrats at several different levels of government. It means ending the kleptocracy that is siphoning massive amounts of money from the Mexican economy and sending it overseas. Until that happens, any money that gets there from the US is just pissin' down a hole.

[fuelair]

Or maybe we should have green buses line up at the schools to take the drop-outs directly to the fields? Get the disruptive, un-educatable students out of the classrooms? But that would make the principals look bad when the "numbers of students planning to go to college" drops.

Excellent idea - and the ones who thought working in school was a waste of time have a chance to work and get to return when they get smart.

[President Bush]

Mexican guitars and other instruments come from entire familes, sometimes even whole villages that build nothing else. Yes we see some cheap imports, but handmade mexican acoustic guitars are on parallel with anything anywhere.
Vamos a Paracho (http://www.guitar-vacation-retreats.com/paracho.html).

[shecky]

No, we don't. The Mexicans need to find a way to make Mexico better. Instead, they're just coming up here illegally and scaming our system.

What exactly is the scam? Employer needs worker, illegal immigrant steps up to the plate.

You are right, in that the US doesn't need to help Mexico. Mexico is up to the Mexicans. There may be some concern over the possibility that Mexico undergoes massive political instability, but that doesn't seem to be a major concern these days.

Back to the original post, there's not much reason to keep the US an agricultiral nation. Aside from a few subsidized areas, such concerns are generally taken care of by supply and demand issues. Farmers generally raise things that will sell. If a farmer cannot make a go of it, he usually gets out of the business.

There are some concerns, as expressed by a couple folks here, that the US be able to feed itself, presumably for some kind of strategic reasons or protectionst reasons. I tend to think such justifications are on pretty shakey ground and lead to subsidizing nonsense.

[pipelineaudio]

Absolutely agree with you, RandFan. Like I said, it's all just market forces.

However, while that is technically true, before the wage would ever get high enough for Americans to take the jobs, the American agricultural industry would probably no longer be competitive.

I hope your not stuck i nthe ancient 50's myth that illegals are "only taking jobs americans dont want"

[pipelineaudio]

[QUOTE]No, we don't. The Mexicans need to find a way to make Mexico better. Instead, they're just coming up here illegally and scaming our system.

WE do though, because the smug rich people will keep hiring them otherwise

AND

All the "liberal" enablers that keep helping them and belittle the fact that they are criminals and insist not to enforce our laws

They wont let us stop them so we need to fix mexico...what else can we do? Our own traitorus countryment are working against any enforcement

Because it doesn't matter f*ckall whether we spend it there directly, or whether they take it home through illegal employment in the US. The end result is the same, f*ckall.

I think money spent on an M-16 and sent directly to a Chiapan than to pay a lawn worker who pays his coyote who pays his drug dealer etc...

[pipelineaudio]

Vamos a Paracho (http://www.guitar-vacation-retreats.com/paracho.html).

WOW!!!!

Now THATS what Im talking about!

Awesome!

[Pescado]

I hope your not stuck i nthe ancient 50's myth that illegals are "only taking jobs americans dont want"
This is a thread about agriculture. That is the issue I was commenting on. Care to actually respond to the points I made, specifically about California agriculture being worked only by Americans who had no other choice for the past 70 years, or do you just want to snipe and run?

[pipelineaudio]

This is a thread about agriculture. That is the issue I was commenting on. Care to actually respond to the points I made, specifically about California agriculture being worked only by Americans who had no other choice for the past 70 years, or do you just want to snipe and run?

Well the thread sort of ran to service in general

I understand this downward spiral you speak of, its happening in construction and auto mechanics, high end restaraunts, hotels (even at the highest local levels)

[shecky]

Well the thread sort of ran to service in general

I understand this downward spiral you speak of, its happening in construction and auto mechanics, high end restaraunts, hotels (even at the highest local levels)

What exactly is this spiral. Is it in fact downward?

[pipelineaudio]

What exactly is this spiral. Is it in fact downward?

Its downward for the health and happiness of the society it happens to.

It works like this: Joe blow and John Doe have hotels or tract home construction companies or 100$ a plate restaraunts say

Joe Blow fires his staff and hires illegals. He may drop his prices and beging parts/supplies procurement illegally as well (these usually go hand in hand, the coyotes that supply the illegals are often "midnight lumber supply" among other things).

John Doe is losing business as his rates have to be higher (not so applicable at 100dollar a plate restaraunt). Due to Joe Blow's illegal parts/supplies procurement, the parts/supplies must raise their prices to make up for lost business. John Doe wants to stay legal, so he doesnt hire the illegals. He's out of business pretty quick.

Any new company coming in to replace John DOe doesnt bother trying to stay legal, they get the coyote day labor service to provide staff

[shecky]

Its downward for the health and happiness of the society it happens to.



OK. Immigration, both legal and illegal, has been pretty high since before you and I were born. Perhaps over 10 million illegal immigrants are in the country right now. Has the health and happiness of American society really experienced a downward spiral?

[pipelineaudio]

dont be a tool and try to perpetuate the lie that legal immigration is related to criminal invasion

[shecky]

dont be a tool and try to perpetuate the lie that legal immigration is related to criminal invasion

What are you talking about?