Summary
California farmers, many of whom supported Trump, face a potential crisis as his immigration policies threaten mass deportations of undocumented workers, who make up at least half of the state’s 162,000 farm labor force.
Deportations could devastate agriculture, leading to labor shortages, unharvested crops, and rising food prices.
Farmers hope for solutions such as workforce legalization or expanded H-2A guest worker programs, though these have been criticized for exploitation risks.
Historical parallels to programs like “Operation Wetback” and the bracero system highlight possible labor and human rights challenges ahead.
I have nothing against the competent ones, but most arent. As I noted they treat drip feed watering as some massive breakthrough when my own ancestors figured it out a hundred years ago.
Also their intelligence states nothing on their ability to produce food, 90 percent of the time they arent building the actual hardware or equipment. The ones reliant on illegal labor are a fine example of folks who could be removed and nothing would be lost. The ones who do their actual fucking job and arent reliant on others running things I have nothing against as a group.
No offense, but unless you are an experienced and successful commercial farmer, you are simply not qualified to make that assessment. And it really shows. Oh don’t worry, I hear this sort of horse shit all the time from people with exactly zero farming experience.
Do you know anything about irrigation at all? I suspect not. There are several issues here, but mainly it boils down to basic cost-benefit. I have a friend who’s family has senior water rights for their farm in the central valley. Rest assured, they are perfectly well aware of drip irrigation and have been for probably longer than you’ve been alive. But they flood irrigate, and why? It’s the most cost effective method for them in their situation. You can complain all you want about whether that’s the “best” method for other reasons, but’s the most sensible approach for their farm.
It’s notable that this is the only example you can give.
This sentence is completely nonsensical. Are you saying that you are judging they are not competent because ability to produce food aside, they aren’t spending their time programing embedded C**? That they don’t build equipment?
I really don’t even know what you mean, but some basic facts are completely untrue.
Completely FALSE. Early on in my farming life I worked on a farm that made use of undocumented workers. These same workers came back to this farm year after year where they had a welcome home and were paid well. The owner of the farm relied on their labor because he could not find their skills anywhere else, and I believe it - I worked side by side with them and they were amazing. Nobody local could compete even if they wanted to do that work. I earned less than half of their wage and totally respected that.
You really have no idea what you are talking about.
** In the winter I build various Arduino devices for controlling irrigation, greenhouse temperature controls, etc. I’m hardly unique in that.
This is a difference in philosophy it seems, let me elaborate better.
All functions of a farm should be done by a farmer on the day to day, harvedt season not withstanding. Be it mechanical repairs, land improvements, or botanical work.
Maintenance of resources, I dont care if its more cash efficient since thats irrelevant. Proper maintenance of raw resources of things like water and soil will pay in dividends a hundred years from that point. I will stab folks who flood water.
Construction of equipment, the over reliance of shitty companies like john deer is pathetic. I get it to a degree but the fact of the matter is that farmers should be trying to build up the required infrastructure to circumvent their BS monopoly copyright be damned.
Use of illegal labor has no excuse, its exploitation clean and simple. I dont care if they have skillsets you need, lobby for an improvement to the visa system. If ya need something done in a specific way increase pay, work quality, and give them the proper time for training. If not I dont care if your fields blight.
Waste of resources, shit shouldnt be left to rot. If ya cant harvest or its dollar inefficient then you shouldnt have planted. If its a grove then cut it down.
And then finally, I have worked on a farm. My great aunts to be precise the day to day was just us. I was payed 20 an hour and I did everything from repairing fences to jury rigging a 90 year old tractor back to life just to use it to tow the sowing machine. I am of the opinion that to run a farm ya need to be as independent as possible and as resource efficient as possible, also cash doesnt count as a raw resource.
Really? I couldn’t tell. What I can tell is that you’ve never owned and run one.
In theory I don’t disagree. In practice, you need to hire people. That’s just the basic economic reality when margins sit at 10%.
Are you kidding? How long do you think any given farm will survive if they only invest in things that pay dividends 100 years form now? It’s a balance.
You don’t even know that sometimes it’s more environmentally friendly, do you? That’s how ignorant you are.
And this is the farmer’s problem how? And it’s Deere.
Even when that labor is paid fairly? Even if not using it puts you out of business completely? Even if you ARE lobbying but getting nowwhere?
Who says it is?
I mean basically it’s super easy for someone such as yourself who has never had their livelihood and everything they’ve worked for for many years on the line to have very strong opinions and spout off these simplicities. Frankly I find your attitude and much of what you write laughable.
I will admit I am being a tad bit inflexible but I am doing it to largely illustrate my point. Also the I have had a fucking headache since six in the morning its six till three now. Anyways my point on that is largely philosophical the platonic ideals of farming if ya will, there will always be exceptions to the rule I just leave those exceptions to the environmental scientists to decide. A fine example is the rice farms in the central valley which double function as an important rest area for certain migratory birds.
Anyways I am going to try to get back onto the whole farmers and to a degree rural folks as a whole are ignorant, hopefully without the regional hatred of an Inland Imperial showing.
Rural areas have been propagandized to a severe level for centuries resulting in them taking often times self destructive tendencies, a prime example of this is a town up towards NorCal I believe who wanted to build lots of single family homes instead of high density apartments and condos under the false assumption that building high density would inevitably destroy them faster than building low density. Ive come across plenty who assume they know the wisdom of the world yet haven’t left their county since the fucken 90s, seriously if I have to hear about how LA and Seattle were burnt down I am going to drag someone behind my fucken car.
Rural regions have been under the under influence of priests, talk radio, and fox news for decades and it has rotted them. My vitriol is largely that of someone lashing out against seeing people who closely resemble his kin being abused.
Also I am quite literally repeating the ideals of my 2x great grandfather when it comes to irrigation, this dates back to the water war. The problem is that everytime the states attempts to reform water rights and water irregation the central valley throws the biggest bitch fit.
So you are going to condemn farmers as a whole as incompetent morons because they are not perfectly in line with your ideal despite your lack of knowledge and experience or any real qualification beyond being slightly farming adjacent a handful of times. And frankly I think you made that up given that you couldn’t even use the right terminology. I thought it was because English is not your native language. Ha.
Here’s my unsolicited suggestion for you: read more. Your writing sucks, which is not a good thing for someone who likes to blather on.
I did note I was dealing with a headache. I read plenty, its just an issue where my mind is scattershot at the best of times meaning that when I have a fucken headache I cant coalesce my thoughts into spoken form let alone written particularly well. Autisms a right fucken bitch for writing, and thats not even factoring in how shit my dialect is for use in the written word.
Regardless I have nothing more to say to ya profligate. Also I will be vindicated when the Central Valley is turned to dustlands once the water inevitably dries up just like the Aral sea.