Trump promises farmers that immigrant crackdown won't deprive them of farmhands.

[DetlefK]

http://www.rawstory.com/2017/05/trump-tries-to-reassure-worried-farmers-that-immigration-crackdown-is-not-aimed-at-their-workers/

“He assured us we would have plenty of access to workers,” said Zippy Duvall, president of the American Farm Bureau Federation, one of 14 participants at the April 25 meeting with Trump and Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue.

During the roundtable conversation about agriculture, farmers and representatives of the sector brought up labor and immigration, the details of which have not been previously reported. Some farmers told Trump they often cannot find Americans willing to do the difficult farm jobs, according to interviews with nine of the 14 participants.

...

About half of U.S. crop workers are in the country illegally and more than two-thirds are foreign born, according to the most recent figures from the U.S. Department of Labor’s National Agriculture Workers’ Survey.

During the roundtable, Luke Brubaker, a dairy farmer from Pennsylvania, described how immigration agents had recently picked up half a dozen chicken catchers working for a poultry transportation company in his county.

The employer tried to replace them with local hires, but within three hours all but one had quit, Brubaker told the gathering at the White House.

...

While use of the program has steadily increased over the past decade, it still accounts for only about 10 percent of the estimated 1.3 million farmworkers in the country, according to government data. In 2016, the government granted 134,000 H-2A visas

Employers who import workers with H-2A visas must provide free transportation to and from the United States as well as housing and food for workers once they arrive. Wage minimums are set by the government and are often higher than farmers are used to paying.

...

Roundtable participants said that many farmers have worried about the effect of the stepped up enforcement on their workforce, but Trump told them his administration was focused on deporting criminals, not farmworkers.

...

Last Tuesday, Democrats in the House and Senate said they would introduce a bill to give farmworkers who have worked illegally in the country for two consecutive years a “blue card” to protect them from deportation.

Brubaker, the Pennsylvania farmer, said he liked what he had heard about the bill and hoped it would get the president’s support to make it a bipartisan effort.

“The administration has got something started here,” he said of the meeting with farm leaders. “It’s about time something happens.”



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Oh Yes. Trump has started something. He has opened a brand-new can of worms.

Those people he's deporting. Many of them are in fact NOT criminals.

Let's see how the farmers like Trump once they start losing all their cheap and exploitable farmhands.

[tanyev]

1. Oh, Mr. Brubaker. You're about to be disappointed.

Very disappointed.

[burnbaby]

2. if robots are taking over

manufacturing jobs why can't they also act as farmhands? I keep reading on this board that even if manufacturing jobs were brought back to the USA there would still be no jobs because of automation (which I understood as robots ) doing all the work.
Instead of hiring undocumented people, because Americans wont do the job, then automate it

[leftyladyfrommo]

3. A lot is already automated.

There are machines for all kinds of farm work.

[burnbaby]

4. then why are farmers

complaining? do they need someone to run and fix the equipment? If that is the case I bet they can find documented people to do it

[leftyladyfrommo]

15. Most people can't stand the back breaking work of pick strawberries.

They have tried to find workers here in the US and they don't last a day. The work is too physically demanding. You have to work bent over in the sun.

Not everything can be automated. They used to pick cotton by hand. Now they use machines. Most planting is done by machines now. But there are still some things that need to be harvested by hand.

[DetlefK]

5. Robots aren't that good at walking yet.

If they are working on a bench or conveyor-belt, then robots have no problem. But walking around is very tricky because of the heavy battery.

On the other hand...
The US army is testing a robotic donkey, to haul equipment.
And a south-korean shipyard is testing exoskeleton-suits that increase the strength of a worker.

[burnbaby]

6. seems we automate so many things

why not this too. I hear tractors can help

[WePurrsevere]

8. Some foods can be harvested with

mechanical equipment but some require careful selection and hand harvesting and those are the jobs most locals turn their nose up at.

There will probably be robots that can do this eventually but that day isn't here yet.

[hunter]

9. Think of strawberries. Those are still picked and placed in the baskets they are sold in by hand...

...because strawberries are fragile and don't ripen well if picked too early.

Other fruits, like tomatoes, can be picked before they are ripe, while they are still tough.

Olive picking and processing has become highly automated. That's why California olive oil is more affordable now, even though labor costs are much higher here than most of the world.

The olive "trees" are planted and pruned much as grapes are.

[safeinOhio]

10. Can't steal wages from robots.

Or tell them. You'll get them straight up.

[Wounded Bear]

7. Connect the dots...

Trump making promises like that, and Sessions promising return to mandatory minimum sentencing in a big way.

I see a future of slave farmhands, colloquially referred to as "prisoners."

[safeinOhio]

11. "Trust me"

When he says that, run.

[Wounded Bear]

16. And hang on to your wallet....nt

[2naSalit]

12. Beat me to it!

Exactly what I was thinking.

[burnbaby]

22. good point

wow!

[mopinko]

13. i wonder about these stories about americans who dont want these jobs.

i wonder if they were recruiting farm workers on a corner in mexico city, would they get a similar wash out percentage?
the immigrants that come in to do these jobs are self selected. they want the jobs, they have experience in the jobs.

after the end of the first day, if they hired a new batch, and most washed out, but then the second day they did it again, etc., at what point would they end up w a good crew?
the farmers w this story have their own reasons to believe that americans dont want these jobs. i dont think they really wont take the job so much as they wont take the job for that kind of money. and they dont have the chance to get the experience that many immigrants have back home on their own/their families farms.

beware self serving anecdotes.

[maveric]

14. He'll make welfare recipients work in the fields.

So that they can "earn" their entitlements.
I heard this the other night at the bowling alley bar.

[workinclasszero]

18. I predict chain gang prison labor as well

Trump will bring back slavery MAGA!

[maveric]

19. I don't detect any sarcasm from your post.

This is really scaring me.

[workinclasszero]

20. I'm serious as hell

I think the republicans will make prison chain gangs work in the fields of America to replace all the Mexicans he is running out.

And Trump will force the SSI recipients the old, sick and unemployed into the fields as well.

It's coming, just wait and see.

[workinclasszero]

17. Trump promises farmers.....

[Vinca]

21. Trump doesn't care. The closest he gets to a vegetable is the french fry.