California Farmers Backed Trump, but Now Fear Losing Field Workers | Hacker News Reader

California Farmers Backed Trump, but Now Fear Losing Field Workers

nytimes.com

51 pointspm2460144 comments

Wait these people that willingly hire illegal workers who are willing to work under minimum wage with little legal protection are worried their workers will be deported and will now have to pay higher wages?

The farming subsidies is already ridiculous [1] for little farmers give back. Perhaps they should innovate instead being left behind, clearly the market is moving against them.

[1] http://www.economist.com/news/united-states/21643191-crop-pr...

I don't think they work for less than minimum wage, nor do they hire them explicitly as illegal workers (instead, they turn a blind eye when their documentation doesn't line up).

How many Americans dream of doing farm work? We have some of the best farmland in the world, but our workforce has mainly moved up the tech chain to more skilled and hence more valuable labor. It is a contradiction.

Disclaimer: Hugely unscientific personal anecdote incoming.

I worked on a farm in CA as a seasonal worker and I, along with a number of my fellow laborers, were paid below CA minimum wage, and I was actually authorized to work in the US. I don't know how widespread this is but I got the impression it wasn't exactly rare.

From comparing experiences with one of my closest friends who is the son of Mexican migrant farm workers in the Central Valley, we have concluded that some farm operators specifically seek out illegal workers, not so much because the hourly wage differential is so great, but because of added savings like insurance and not having to deal with OSHA violations. Farm work an be pretty injury inducing and having a group of workers who are too scared/desperate to report worker safety violations to OSHA can be a big benefit.

For the sake of not generalizing too much, I also know someone who runs a small farm and takes things like paying legal wages and overall worker safety and well being extremely seriously. And again, this is all anecdotal.

Food Inc. discusses the practice of bussing people into the US from central / south America on legal visas. After the visas expire, the sponsors make deals with the INS to slow feed migrants back to them for deportation. Even the people who are against high immigration / illegal immigration aren't going to go after the work visas though. Nobody is going to vote to make food more expensive by forcing what is essentially subsidized labor out of the market. Most of the anti immigration push in the US is about beating the second stage of processes like these - the people that stay and attempt to build political economy for themselves.

When I propose ending the work visa program to 'conservatives', I am laughed at. Maybe there's a better solution, but it's at least a more direct solution to their stated woes than I've heard. Not to put liberals on a pedestal either though - the left in this country basically ignores AG labor entirely.

Yeah I think all of the subsidies are justified by the whole 'non starving populus' externalities even if it isn't an optimal solution.

Please, these people are not stupid. They know exactly what they're doing when they hire undocumented workers.

I think I implied that. They still need cover, however.

Note that farm subsidies don't go to crops which are labor intensive. They're for "row crops" that are fully mechanized.

Exactly!

>But only 9% of California's 74,000 farms have actually received subsidy payments and nearly two-thirds of the money since 1996--$1.8 billion--has gone to fewer than 3,500 farms. Most of the crops that fuel the state's $29-billion farm machine--grapes, peaches, plums, nectarines, strawberries, almonds, walnuts and vegetables of every hue--don't get a penny of aid. They aren't eligible. Rather, the bulk of the money goes to support giant fields of cotton, rice, wheat and barley--crops that exist in surplus. Of the top 20 recipients in California, seven are big cotton growers and 11 are big rice growers. On average, they take in $596,000 in crop subsidies a year.

http://articles.latimes.com/2002/jun/10/local/me-subsidy10

Yes. And the corn subsidy in particular has really thrown off the market, encouraging huge numbers of foods in the US to be made with some sort of corn byproduct. We quite literally are subsidizing the fattening of the US with Coca-Cola getting a cheap sugar.

They're idiots if they thought Trump wouldn't follow through on his pledge to deport illegal workers.

However, it should be noted that protectionism will also help American farmers, as produce from Mexico will become more expensive.

Should also add, allowing illegal immigrants to work benefits no one. Not American workers, not Mexican workers, no one. By bypassing labour laws and minimum wages, it allows for exploitation and also drives wages down.

Exactly. Yet if you make it illegal to hire a non-citizen and you have millions of laborers you create a black market of cheap labor for unsafe business practices.

It's better to legalize and regulate something than to make it illegal. Make the minimum wage to hire a non-citizen the same $15/hour for a citizen and poof all the illegals now compete with the citizens at fair market rate.

The problem is granting citizenship to effectively anyone who wants it is not going to fly, but allowing millions of non-citizen workers would require the elimination of birthright citizenship for the same reason. And then you have a permanent underclass.

An actual solution might be to rework the way we do agricultural subsidies, to replace them with wage subsidies for agricultural workers. Then you only get the subsidy if you hire someone legally, which causes legal workers to out-compete the black market.

A UBI (which allows the elimination of the minimum wage) could do the same without the industry-specific treatment.

> It's better to legalize and regulate something than to make it illegal.

And there's already a system in place allowing for legal immigration.

That being said, too much immigration, legal or not, has significant social and economic effects. Tolerating illegal workers and unlimited immigration are both bad ideas.

> Should also add, allowing illegal immigrants to work benefits no one. Not American workers, not Mexican workers, no one. By bypassing labour laws and minimum wages, it allows for exploitation and also drives wages down.

That's may or may not be true, and could be a combination of a) there aren't enough people around who would do the job even with minimum wage, e.g. depending on how attractive welfare is and b) it's hard to legally immigrate. So the reality is - as usual - complicated. Let's assume somehow magically all illegal immigrants were deported or whatever. What do you think would happen in the short and long run? To e.g. fresh produce? Do you really think American workers would rush in, and the public would tolerate the higher prices?

There's no easy solutions, and many wrong ones that tackle symptoms but not the root cause.

> There's no easy solutions

Capitalism has an easy solution. Labour shortage = raise wages.

Sorry, I edited the parent comment for brevity and changed it a bit. But my question is still who would pay for those wage raises? The people who buy the products? How do you think they'd react if fruit/vegetables were twice the price overnight? Would they say "yeah, that seems fair" or "fuck it, let's allow immigration"? Do they even earn enough money themselves to have the liberty to make that decision, if food was a lot more expensive?

> But my question is still who would pay for those wage raises? The people who buy the products?

Yes, exactly.

> How do you think they'd react if fruit/vegetables were twice the price overnight?

If you weren't artificially suppressing wages through illegal immigration, the working class would have more money, the labour market would be at a better equilibrium and everyone would have money to buy food even at the slightly higher prices. Who knows, maybe landowning farmers would even find some way to produce more efficiently, with a little incentive.

Slightly higher prices? Care to add some support to that, even if just your imagination and assumptions? My guess is more like "$20 lettuce," at the very least.

Well, the unemployment rate isn't zero. It's hard to say exactly how elastic the labour market is, but my guess is labour costs wouldn't actually double. They'd probably go up by 20-50%, worst case. If the market can't take a 50% price increase, the farmers will either sell for less margin and accept a cut in profits, or they'll find efficiency through automation.

But as I pointed out, nothing happens in a vacuum. Rising 'cost' of labour means rising wages, consumers have more money. What's the better equilibrium?

Keep in mind, in most parts of the world, we pay much, much more for food than Americans. Somehow we survive, and live pretty damn well too.

Edit - I should also add, I buy organic lettuce produced in a greenhouse in Canada. It doesn't cost $20. We're somewhat less tolerant of illegal labour than the US as well.

I think, much like when the ACA was implemented in the US, there's no real way to quantify beforehand how significant the changes will be (that's not saying we should do it and wait for the fallout). Yes, lettuce might go up to $20 a head--we'll eat less lettuce and it's no longer assumed to come free on burgers and people move to something else. We can offset that by offering farmer's more subsidies, importing more lettuce from somewhere else, or incentivize loans for better farm equipment/irrigation.

We'd need to decide to stop exploiting workers and work on finding solutions from there (I don't actually see that first part happening).

>How do you think they'd react if fruit/vegetables were twice the price overnight?

I don't mean to sound cheeky, and you make some good points, but perhaps US consumers would react to higher prices by not throwing away huge portions of produce. I've seen figures that the US throws away ~50% of our produce.

> Capitalism has an easy solution. Labour shortage = raise wages.

Which will move the price of the agricultural products to uncompetitive levels, and the agricultural production will move to Mexico. So to the extent that it turns out the determinative input in the cost of fruits and vegetables is labor, the wages can flow to Mexican workers in Mexico or Mexican workers in the United States, and similarly profits can flow to the owners of land and capital in the United States or those in Mexico.

> Which will move the price of the agricultural products to uncompetitive levels, and the agricultural production will move to Mexico.

And what is wrong with this?

Corporations always magically get very snippy when capitalism works against them.

In addition, California needs to shut down a lot of farming in the Central Valley due to the water shortage. We should not be growing crops in that area when we have to spend so much to actually irrigate it.

A lot of that farming in California provides the vast majority of national or even global supplies of various fruits and vegetables. California's Central Valley has a long growing season and very fertile soil, the combination of which make it about as ideal for growing crops as one can get (with the sole exception of water). Agriculture's here to stay; it's just a question of how much water it'll get.

Water usage can be reduced through smarter irrigation methods, and we have a ridiculously-long coastline that could be put to good use by building some desalinization plants (solving not only our own water crisis, but also the relative aridity of Nevada and Arizona). Even importing water from elsewhere is far more reasonable than shutting down California's agriculture.

That said, beef does take up a disproportionate amount of water statewide, and really ought to be moved out-of-state (and I say this as someone whose extended family has a vested interest in Californian cattle ranching). Alfalfa might benefit from California's soil and sunshine, but the cows themselves don't exactly need to be here.

Hence the protectionist policies that Trump also plans on enacting.

I don't buy that sneaking immigrants into the country to work illegally is the ideal solution. It creates poor incentives (it's too easy to abuse workers. How cheap should we pay them or how many hours to work them? What sort of healthcare or living conditions are acceptable?). There are a few alternatives. I imagine an actual solution would be a mix a) pay a fair wage b) mechanize more of the process (incentivize loans to make it easier) b) increase farm subsidies c) import more food from other countries like Mexico (where they pay lower prices) d) or, if we're hooked on the idea, a special "worker program" visa where we pay below minimum wage. It's not that much different from other industries with a few wrinkles...I believe there are legitimate reasons for partially subsidizing a domestic food supply (in case of trade disputes, natural disasters, or war).

The part I struggle with is how to pursue illegal immigrants who have been quietly living in the country who might have been brought as kids or have established families. What's the cost/benefit and how many resources do you spend on that?

If no one is willing to work for minimum wage, then raise the wages. At some point, people will be willing to work.

This illustrates the point that illegal immigrants are bringing down wages.

Yes. Welfare is very attractive compared to minimum wage. One of the main reasons for labour shortages.

One source of free labour however is WOOF programs but you need to offer housing, farm training, cultural immersion and food to young foreigners in exchange for 3-4 days of labour.

Food is so cheap in the USA that I am pretty sure the organic small farmer makes little to no money. It's ridiculous. Why would anyone want to farm?

Local food is food security. Also..all rural areas will become urban soon.(unless human beings procreate responsibly). It makes no sense to stress resources and cause pollution in large swathes of rural farmland. Makes more sense to have farm 'green lungs' and urban food sheds around which urban areas are built...each local food shed taking care of most of food needs of the local population.

Local distribution is dilution of risk if food security is threatened. For this..a certain percentage of land should be set aside for agriculture and ranchland. Urban density must be normalized.

Back to labour issues: I don't think legality of residency matters. There aren't enough people to do farm work in California. Yes..farm labour abuse does occur rarely but we have a good support system and various agencies and checks and safety nets..but it is not sustainable. Farmers would likely remain tight lipped about the practices and how farm is run..I can understand and I probably would do the same if I weren't just a small acreage farmer. I just don't have enough to share. Even if I did..the 'civilians' just won't understand.

I hope things change and we snap out of our collective delusions about our food and where it comes from..

Protectionism would benefit some U.S. farmers, but certainly not all. The U.S. is a net exporter of corn, soybeans, dairy, etc. to Mexico and they are our third largest agricultural export market.

> The prospect has business owners in the valley on edge. Patricia Pantoj runs a travel agency in Madera, north of Fresno, where the city’s approximately 60,000 residents are predominantly Latino and work in the fields. This year, she said, fewer people than ever before traveled back to their hometowns in Mexico.

> “They didn’t want to risk it,” she said. “Everyone is scared, even if they have papers.”

So policy which was intended to reduce the number of immigrant workers might have an actual effect of turning undocumented temporary/seasonal migrants into permanent denizens.

Whoops!

That's been obvious from the start. Trump is going to destroy the Mexican economy so they're going to flood the States looking for work. NAFTA kept a lot more Mexicans out of the US than any wall ever will.

The "$20 head of lettuce" argument falls apart when you examine it critically.

Here is how I deduced that a $20/hour rate for farm labor, vs the assumed $8/hour rate paid now, would add no more than 5 cents per head of lettuce to the cost, and (assuming various middle-man markups in between farmer and supermarket) a retail difference of perhaps 25 cents.

1. Go to youtube, search for videos of modern lettuce farm operation. IIRC, I looked at the Iceberg Lettuce section of this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oxbJVqfIK1U

2. Count all workers you see working on the tractor-towed rig, figure each makes $8/hour. This gives you the total hourly labor rate (e.g. if there are 10 people = $80/hour).

3. Watch carefully and figure out the total time spent handling/processing 1 head of lettuce. Figure out the per-head cost, assuming the people are working 50 minutes per hour (bathroom breaks, tractor changing the wagon, etc.)

3b. Note that when it is stacked on the back of the truck, it is ready to ship to the supermarket; so there is no further labor needed aside from warehouse/trucking.

Now do the same per-head cost, assuming $20/hour labor (i.e. multiple by 2.5 the amount you got at $8/hour).

* There, now you have answered the question for yourself and you are not relying on my biased opinion. *

In my area a head of lettuce is about $2.50. Assuming the 25-cents increase, the cost for a head of lettuce would go up no more than 10%.

> The "$20 head of lettuce" argument falls apart when you examine it critically.

I'm sorry, what? Your idea of "examine it critically" is to watch a snippet of internet video, assume that it shows the entire picture of produce farming & distibution, and then count people believing that you can use that snippet to calculate costs? You really think this is in any way a meaningful calculation?

Are you for real?

http://coststudyfiles.ucdavis.edu/uploads/cs_public/92/af/92... : everything you want to know about lettuce. (A tad dated: 2009.)

Or rather the economics of it simply: farmer sells 24 count carton to wholesaler at average $12. It can vary from $9-15/carton. How it gets marked up after the farmer sells it doesn't matter.

There are two kinds of wages: harvest/manual labour wages and machine wages. The former is around $12 and the latter around $15(includes payroll taxes).

How does the math work out now? You can 16 pages from ucdavis to crunch it.

For some reason, I can't load that file at this exact moment...

I admit to "eyeballing" the video in estimating the time spent; however, I think it is a good exercise to do, as you realize (for any fruit/veg harvest) how much is done and how quickly.

The argument about "we won't be able to afford fruits/veggies" seems quite "off".

It's not about not being able to afford but rather how much people are willing to pay. No one does. Ask any chef-restauranteur. For whatever reason, in the USA..we are very resistant to opening our wallets for food needs. Reluctance.. I can't explain why. It's a mystery.

That aside..take this example: http://www.freightfarms.com/blog/data-from-our-growers-opera... ..semi automated hydroponics system. It's easier to crunch numbers here. I would seriously dispute the 'profit' of $39k/container. There is also the cost of the land and insurance(its same for 1-20 acres. About $800/annum. How would they treat a container for ag insurance? Rent for space where it's parked etc. I don't know) and certifications(GAP audits etc). Reliability of market etc. I would put it at about a third of it. Because these guys will probably be competing with the Salinas and half moon bay suppliers. Also note that they are not certified organic and perishables have to move quickly to a very certain market.

And you do have to plonk $85/container.(I would round it off to $100k).

I am just trying to show you how even a little bit of deviation towards farm automation makes things better. Of course, it's also highly risky as it's a closed system. The numbers won't apply to other produce. Grains and certain commodity crops will have to be grown in soil only. So automation has to be robotic solutions and slowly complementing human labour. And ultimately full intelligent automation. That's our only option.

We have reached a certain carrying capacity I feel and scaling food production using human labour to feed the billions of people(and animals that go to feed the billions of people) is soon going to become un feasible. Not just in terms of actual labour logistics and costs but also in terms of environmental costs..not to mention resources like fossil fuel, water etc..plus the pollution that is inherent to food production. It's all going to be about carbon footprint.

That's why local food production is important. For every load of lettuce harvested, there is a cost too to transport, refrigerate and then transport it back again to the shelves of the local greengrocer. Makes no sense. Example: a head of lettuce grown in salinas..not too far away from Palo Alto goes through the entire supply chain distribution trip before it ends up at a Whole Foods in Palo Alto. There is so many inefficiency leaks in terms of energy, costs and time. Probably decreased nutritive value also due to the age of said head of lettuce.

This hand wringing over labour issues..illegal or not is moot...is useless as 'fixing' this problem is not really fixing the real problem.

The solution would have to be re how tech is going to help us automate our farms. Who knows..maybe farms could even become profitable if that happens. And food distribution has to be local.

I don't know if I have digressed from your original point..that food won't be expensive if we raise wages. Perhaps I have..but I hope i have shown some other facets of the problem and how raising wages is really not a solution.

To me, this kinda sounds like the "realizations" after Brexit where all people these voted (in favor) and then, shortly afterwards, were basically like "Oh shit! What did we do!?".

For someone to be surprised -- today -- at President Trump's actions and attitudes regarding foreigners, well, I suppose they must have been asleep in the days preceding the election.

I thought Mike Judge's movie Idiocracy was an amusing reducto de absurdum of a population that's doesn't believe in reasoning, though it's becoming eerily similar to the present direction of the USA these days... this article in point.

Robot pickers are out in force since 2003. Even for delicate fruits such as grape, raspberry, and strawberry fields.

Besides those robotic combines, I couldn't find much on robotic pickers that wasn't experimental. Have any good references for this?

In California..in small farms 1-100 acres : Casual labour from in front of Home Depot parking lot won't work for less than $20-22/hour. Interns(they have to be taught. So for every 3-4 hours they work, a skilled farm labourer can do it in one hour..because the time you take to train them is the time when you are not working.) are paid from $10-12/hour. Knowledgeable farm workers(full time..reliable work..in the slightly non-urban areas..sometimes with housing/food) get paid about $12-15/hour. Automated farms is the future of local food.

I ain't exactly an expert in agricultural sector human resources, but I'm pretty sure the guys standing around Home Depot are typically geared around construction rather than farming.

True. I couldn't find another example for comparison of casual labour. They also do simple gardening like tasks like tree planting or cleaning up hedgerows or weed eating or picking 1200 lbs of cherries tomatoes in one day. Landscape companies/gardeners will charge between $25-$80/hour for specific jobs. Sometimes when you are 4-8 hands short..everyone pitches in..and if no one at home will, you have to get whatever help you can..because tomatoes ain't going to harvest themselves!! Vegetable production is brutal when it comes to planning and certainties.

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