Ga.’s farm-labor crisis going exactly as planned
Gov. Nathan Deal signs a tough illegal-immigration bill on May 13, with House Speaker David Ralston, left, and bill sponsor Rep. Matt Ramsey, right, looking on.
After enactment of House Bill 87, a law designed to drive illegal immigrants out of Georgia, state officials appear shocked to discover that HB 87 is, well, driving a lot of illegal immigrants out of Georgia.
It might almost be funny if it wasn’t so sad.
The resulting manpower shortage has forced state farmers to leave millions of dollars’ worth of blueberries, onions and other crops unharvested and rotting in the fields. It has also put state officials into something of a panic at the damage they’ve done to Georgia’s largest industry.
Barely a month ago, you might recall, Gov. Nathan Deal welcomed the TV cameras into his office as he proudly signed HB 87 into law. Two weeks later, with farmers howling, a scrambling Deal was forced to order a hasty investigation into the impact of the law he had just signed, as if all this had come as quite a surprise to him.
The results of that investigation have now been released. According to survey of 230 Georgia farmers conducted by Agriculture Commissioner Gary Black, farmers expect to need more than 11,000 workers at some point over the rest of the season, a number that probably underestimates the real need, since not every farmer in the state responded to the survey.
“The agriculture industry is the number one economic engine in Georgia and it is my sincere hope to find viable and law-abiding solutions to the current problem our farmers face,” Deal said in announcing the findings. In the meantime, Deal proposes that farmers try to hire the 2,000 unemployed criminal probationers estimated to live in southwest Georgia.
Somehow, I suspect that would not be a partnership made in heaven for either party.
According to the survey, more than 6,300 of the unclaimed jobs pay an hourly wage of $7.25 to $8.99, or an average of roughly $8 an hour. Over a 40-hour work week in the South Georgia sun, that’s $320 a week, before taxes, although most workers probably put in considerably longer hours. Another 3,200 jobs pay $9 to $11 an hour. And while our agriculture commissioner has been quoted as saying Georgia farms provide “$12, $13, $14, $16, $18-an-hour jobs,” the survey reported just 169 openings out of more than 11,000 that pay $16 or more.
In addition, few of the jobs include benefits — only 7.7 percent offer health insurance, and barely a third are even covered by workers compensation. And the truth is that even if all 2,000 probationers in the region agreed to work at those rates and stuck it out — a highly unlikely event, to put it mildly — it wouldn’t fix the problem.
Given all that, Deal’s pledge to find “viable and law-abiding solutions” to the problem that he helped create seems naively far-fetched. Again, if such solutions existed, they should have been put in place before the bill ever became law, because this impact was entirely predictable and in fact intended.
It’s hard to envision a way out of this. Georgia farmers could try to solve the manpower shortage by offering higher wages, but that would create an entirely different set of problems. If they raise wages by a third to a half, which is probably what it would take, they would drive up their operating costs and put themselves at a severe price disadvantage against competitors in states without such tough immigration laws. That’s one of the major disadvantages of trying to implement immigration reform state by state, rather than all at once.
The pain this is causing is real. People are going to lose their crops, and in some cases their farms. The small-town businesses that supply those farms with goods and services are going to suffer as well. For economically embattled rural Georgia, this could be a major blow.
In fact, with a federal court challenge filed last week, you have to wonder whether state officials aren’t secretly hoping to be rescued from this mess by the intervention of a judge. But given how the Georgia law is drafted and how the Supreme Court ruled in a recent case out of Arizona, I don’t think that’s likely.
We’re going to reap what we have sown, even if the farmers can’t.
– Jay Bookman
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619 comments Add your comment
TrishaDishaWarEagle
June 14th, 2011
4:36 pm
My extended family has 780 acres of peaches and pecans in ocilla, GA and they are not hurting one bit from the law. They never did hire illegals, and they pay a peicemeal rate (per bushel) which attracts the hardest workers because you can earn $200+ a day if you haul a**.
Those who based their profitability on illegal labor (much like the restaurant industry) may hurt but thats the chance they took.
Dusty
June 14th, 2011
4:36 pm
Liberals keep showing their “characteristics” here. #1 They don’t expect anyone to HAVE to work. #2 You should get paid (unemployment $) even if you are not working no matter how long it takes. #3 Picking & packing fruit & veggies takes a college degree in agriculture #4 Prisoners should not work in the hot sun. They might riot. #5 “Illegals” not only work, they also vote for Democrats. #6 Any governor who is a Republican cannot read or write. Only Dems can do that! #6 A majority of bloggers seem to be liberals who would NOT be seen pulling a peach off a tree. Illegal workers should be here to do it.
Democrtats are such a JOLLY (lazy) gang.
joe suggs
June 14th, 2011
4:38 pm
You mean the state will shutdown if we do not keep all the illegals ? If they get citizenship do you think they will work minimum wage jobs. No , they will collect welfare, food stamps, medicaid just like millions do now . Jay , you are not paying enough income taxes !!
ty webb
June 14th, 2011
4:39 pm
Amvet,
well, okay, maybe not all, but a lot of them(just look at Jay’s opening sentences)…and the bill’s only a few weeks old.
jasper
June 14th, 2011
4:39 pm
I must admit I do miss, all of the uninsured unlicensed drivers here in the burbs, as well as all of thos ESOL students, more pictures on the mugshot webpage, 20 laborers living in someone’s basement down the street, waiting in line at the indigent care emergency room. Its one thing to have laws, quite another to enforce them.
Hillbilly D
June 14th, 2011
4:40 pm
Interesting nugget: 10 percent of the farms collected 82 percent of the subsidies in 2009.
That may come as a surprise to some people but a lot of us have known that for years.
One thing that I think is being overlooked by most is that most crop gathering is done by piece rate, rather than by an hourly rate. That’s one reason they work such long hours, because they get paid by the bushel, by the pound, etc, depending on the crop.
BlahBlahBlah
June 14th, 2011
4:40 pm
Keep Up The Good Fight – it’s not prisoners, it’s folks on probation who are currently unemployed. It’s not free labor.
Keep Up the Good Fight!
June 14th, 2011
4:41 pm
lump…you can make all the false equivalents you want. Its the right who argue that government should not pick “winners or losers”. Are you whining about TARP (which was passed by Bush) or are you saying its okay to repeat it in GA? So do you have an intelligent response? You want to use prisoners to work for free for some private enterprise. Do you understand the consequences and costs of your simple solution?
Mike
June 14th, 2011
4:41 pm
So you are for illegal immigration and since the jobs don’t come with medical benefits you are saying Obamacare has failed? Right?
The Leg Lamp is a "major award"......
June 14th, 2011
4:42 pm
Keep Up the Good Fight!
June 14th, 2011
4:41 pm
If you actually posted something intelligent you may actually get an intelligent response. Just sayin….
Keep Up the Good Fight!
June 14th, 2011
4:43 pm
Blah…so you now want to use people on probation to perform labor but not for “free”. At what cost? What is the program?
The Leg Lamp is a "major award"......
June 14th, 2011
4:45 pm
Keep Up the Good Fight!
June 14th, 2011
4:43 pm
KUTGOOF, so I guess your solution is to invite the illegals to return. Niiiiice.
The Anti-Wooten
June 14th, 2011
4:45 pm
Are there no prisons? Are there no workhouses?
Next year Deal will ask Labor, Agriculture and Corrections to put together a plan for how many workers are needed. That way he can just order the Gestapo to put more folks in jail to ensure an adequate peach crop.
Jay
June 14th, 2011
4:46 pm
Tundra Dude — “Fact: A cucumber picker earns less than 3 cents each. They retail for about 50 cents. Doubling the wages adds a mere 3 cents to the retail price. I’d guess it’s the same with onions. The pickers’ wages are a tiny fraction of the retail price. Looks like there’s plenty of room for profit.”
Using those facts, another way to look at it is you just raised the price of a cucumber by 6 percent.
Hope for many
June 14th, 2011
4:47 pm
11k jobs. Hmmm…seems as though those students who are worried about having to come out of pocket for a whole $1000/year now to go to a GA college might like to put in 3 or 4 weeks of work now to pay for a year of school. What a deal (no pun intended).
Unemployment in many rural counties runs in double digits, I would think there are available laborers. If there aren’t, it would be because drawing unemployment is more lucrative?
The Leg Lamp is a "major award"......
June 14th, 2011
4:47 pm
The Anti-Wooten
June 14th, 2011
4:45 pm
Are there no laws? Should we not enforce those laws?
Real Scooter
June 14th, 2011
4:48 pm
Dusty
June 14th, 2011
4:36 pm
ROFLMAO!!!!!
Keep Up the Good Fight!
June 14th, 2011
4:48 pm
lump…. do show where I said your stupidity. I imagine Jay will invite you to the jerk list before lone…tick tick tick.
Anti-Wooten…exactly. free workers for all until we round them all up.
Ace
June 14th, 2011
4:48 pm
No benefits, only seasonal work, #1 Economic Engine in Georgia-These guys must be making a fortune without having to have a labor force to deal with. I bet all companies would operate this way if given the chance. If the agricultural industry can’t survive without what amounts to illegal immigrant slave labor, perhaps they should develop a new business model and play by the rules of every other business in this country.
AmVet
June 14th, 2011
4:48 pm
None of you cons have apparently ever lived in agricultural communities
Otherwise, you wouldn’t come up with these goofball ideas. 11,000 probationers wandering around god’s green earth? Puhleeze.
Certainly, everyone of you cons have buddies who are unemployed or terribly underemployed. (Thanks to Barack. LOL!)
Don’t they need some Vitamin D?
But here’s the kicker, those boys would work at about a quarter the speed of Juan and Maria.
And Dusty, your Whopper filled face wouldn’t last one day in those fields. Not one.
Joe Mama
June 14th, 2011
4:49 pm
Jay — “Using those facts, another way to look at it is you just raised the price of a cucumber by 6 percent.”
That’s not an insignificant price increase, but it’s not a world-ender, either. Heck, gas has gone up more than 6 pct this year, I’d wager.
I’d pay a nickel more per piece or can of produce so workers could get a living wage.
The Leg Lamp is a "major award"......
June 14th, 2011
4:50 pm
Keep Up the Good Fight!
June 14th, 2011
4:48 pm
KUTGOOF, “do show where I said your stupidity. I imagine Jay will invite you to the jerk list before lone”.
Ummm, care to translate?
Cory
June 14th, 2011
4:50 pm
If you think it is scare tatics come to Ashburn Ga I can walk you through a dozen watermelon fields and let you see the fruit rotting in the field. I think it is safe to say that Deal will not be reelected.
Tundra Dude
June 14th, 2011
4:50 pm
Joe Mama wrote:
I’d be interested in seeing further breakdowns of this sort (e.g. cost per tater, cost per peach, cost per onion, etc). Do you have a link you could share, please?
I know I had exactly that info, a while back. I was outraged when cukes were, for a time, selling for 99 cent each!! I just Had to know what the actual labor cost was.
Think it was U of Iowa had a report/study on this. “How much is that Tomato?”
I’d be glad to look for any links I might have saved, when I get back….just got called for emergency babysittin’ for a twee year old, (she adores me).
1811/1801 - 0311/0317
June 14th, 2011
4:51 pm
1) All of you lazy North Georgians out of work get down to South Georgia and pick that fruit !
Note: Sure it’s hot and dangerous (could be a snake or two) but nothing like our troops are going through and you get paid more. Camp out in pup tents just like the grunts do and you don’t even have to worry about rockets, RPG’s, mines, snipers or mortars. What a deal!
2) All of you sons and daughters, cousins, friends, etc. ot those farmers in South Georgia get down there and pick that fruit. At least salvage some of it instead of whining.
3) Jay ……… take a leave of absence from your job here and get down there and pick that fruit.
St Simons - we're on Island time
June 14th, 2011
4:52 pm
Well, duh, the greedy cons make more money this way.
They don’t have to pay a living wage to anybody, and
the beauty of the “freee market” sends the price through
the roof. Clever cons.
We would’ve gladly paid a little more for food, for a
transparent system of living wages for Americans and
hope-to-be Americans that could get a hearty supply
of food to the Publix, but nooooo, not these cons, no sir.
They want it ALL.
Why don’t they just make it their campaign slogan,
it fits on a bumpersticker – “let em eat cake”
Remember what happened to her, cons. You remember that.
Keep Up the Good Fight!
June 14th, 2011
4:53 pm
If you use prisoners to perform work for free for private enterprise, you encourage possible false convictions just to “man” the fields. You also “compete” with the free market to provide labor and distort it. You ignore the costs to the state to monitor the prisoners. Are you busing prisoners 100s of miles. Who houses?
Limit it to unemployed and on probation and you have a number of other questions. But again, why is the free market not providing the labor?
The Leg Lamp is a "major award"......
June 14th, 2011
4:53 pm
Cory
June 14th, 2011
4:50 pm
Run Roy again and Deal will be a lock for a 2nd term.
Dusty
June 14th, 2011
4:54 pm
Keep,
Is it possible for you to post somethng without mentioning Bush? I don’t believe you can do it. Bush had a workers program in place. It is still in place but it takes a little trouble to use it.
Why don’t you pick some peaches for a change? It might make you remember that Bush is no longer president. Judging the way things look, you might wish you hadn’t produced all that ugly propaganda about him when considering Hope & Change is but dust in the distant past.
Hillbilly D
June 14th, 2011
4:54 pm
Georgia has about 150,000 probationers, now.
Jay, you might find this interesting.
Went to your link and checked the subsidy list for the two zip codes closest to me.
Taking the top 5 from each list, for a total of 10, 3 are being paid subsidies for lands in other states, one is a former long time county official, who retired after a career of full time work in that job, one is a member of another profession who is now waiting to be sentenced for breaking laws related to his profession, and 2 or 3 actually make a living from farming,
Keep Up the Good Fight!
June 14th, 2011
4:57 pm
Dusty… do make sense. Bush did try immigration reform. I was giving him credit. And if a poster blames TARP on Obama you dont want to correct him with the accuracy. But you’ve got the don’t blame bush nonsense talking point.
I just checked the history books…why it looks as if Bush was never president.
Dusty
June 14th, 2011
4:57 pm
St Simons,
You’ve been listening to too many conch shells on the beach. Get a new bumper sticker. “Let ‘em pick peaches!”
BlahBlahBlah
June 14th, 2011
4:59 pm
Keep Up – the cost would be the prevailing market wage. They’re out of jail, on probation, and unemployed. There are jobs available if they want them.
Joe
June 14th, 2011
4:59 pm
Legalized work force vs. Legalized slavery… Democrats never run from their past. Bring out the plantations.
Jay
June 14th, 2011
4:59 pm
That doesn’t surprise me, HD, especially in your neck of the woods. Not many (legal) cash crops I’d imagine.
md
June 14th, 2011
4:59 pm
Sounds like the folks mailing out unemployment checks need to point an arrow in the direction of the openings…………..
Joe Mama
June 14th, 2011
5:00 pm
1811 — “All of you lazy North Georgians out of work get down to South Georgia and pick that fruit!”
Well, isn’t that *just* like a conservative — demanding that someone else clean up their messes.
“nothing like our troops are going through and you get paid more.”
I question the assertion that you’d get paid more for picking produce than for totin’ a rifle.
J bills
June 14th, 2011
5:00 pm
Farmers can get all the temporary workers that they want using the H2A visa program. End of story ! Farm labor employers in the Southeast are increasingly using a federal program that allows them to import foreign workers on a temporary basis. The H-2A Temporary Foreign Worker Program for Agriculture requires the employers to demonstrate a shortage of U.S. laborers. http://www.aces.edu/pubs/docs/A/ANR-1244/
Jack
June 14th, 2011
5:01 pm
Bookman knows all about this farm stuff: he knows because he was born on a farm and had to hoe a row. And plow with a hard tail.
RAMBLE ON!!!
June 14th, 2011
5:02 pm
Hmm, you mean those folks collecting unemployment checks for the same amount of money (probably better) these last 2 years don’t want to go work in the 90 degree heat?
SHOCKED I TELL YOU, I’M SHOCKED!!!
Dusty
June 14th, 2011
5:02 pm
Keep,
You did all you could but YES Bush was president for eight years. You JUST can’t get over it. Time to move on and notice who’s running the show now. Haven’t heard you nitpicking every detail about the numerous problems presided over by Pres. Obama. Wonder why that is. Tunnel vision?
Jay
June 14th, 2011
5:02 pm
Interestingly, Jbills, only 7.5 percent of the farmers responding to the survey said they participate in the H2A visa program that brings them legal temporary migrant workers.
Keep Up the Good Fight!
June 14th, 2011
5:03 pm
Yes Blah, that is the current situation. You want someone who has never been a farmer worker to relocate from their current situation (possibly living with friends or family) and looking for a job (hoping they find one to with a future) to move for low wages to some other city and this is the magic solution.
Do you not think that these people can determine their own economic analysis? You want to force them rather than tell private enterprise to entice them.
Real Scooter
June 14th, 2011
5:04 pm
Dang,I’m confused as usual.
Some of y’all are bashing cons for hiring illegals and some of the same ones are bashing them for trying to get rid of the illegals. Whew!
md
June 14th, 2011
5:04 pm
Some here seem to be advocating for perpetual employment by illegals……..I don’t see that as a viable option. Migrant programs have worked in the past, and still work now……I don’t feel too much sympathy because some farmers took a shortcut…………but that’s just hardass me…….
Soothsayer
June 14th, 2011
5:04 pm
Jay, I’ve just had a eureka moment! I’m going to invent a traveling, air-conditioned, picking dome that workers — unaccustomed to the blazing hot Georgia sun — can use when picking those agricultural products. Just think about it! No need to break a sweat! You can just ride along in air-conditioned comfort, reclining and picking that fruit, vegetable, whatever. Now soft college students, city folk, whoever, can come on down to South Georgia and pick them fruits and vegetables. What do you think? Does it have chance? Tell me I’m not off-base here!
Dusty
June 14th, 2011
5:04 pm
JACK
BOOKMAN plowing? I wondered where he got all the dirt.
Jay
June 14th, 2011
5:04 pm
Also, HB 87 DOES phase in its employer requirements. What’s happening is that workers are responding and perhaps even overreacting to the anti-immigrant sections of the bill, which take effect immediately. They’re spooked.
dumblicats
June 14th, 2011
5:04 pm
About time one of these redumblicans did something right.
“Even though I’ve supported this tax credit, for all of the years that I have served in both the House and Senate, I think the time has come,” said Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R, Ga.), in a sign of the changing political climate. “I do not intend to support an extension of that tax credit beginning from the expiration at the end of this year.”
Regarding ethanol tax breaks
Mr Right
June 14th, 2011
5:05 pm
With high unemployment why can’t farmers find LEGAL workers ? I kind of get the feeling it’s like why work when you can sit back and do nothing and the gov will take care of you.
Joe Mama
June 14th, 2011
5:07 pm
J Bills — “Farmers can get all the temporary workers that they want using the H2A visa program. End of story !”
And here’s why more ag employers don’t use the program. From the linked matter:
The H-2A has visa requirements intended to protect workers from exploitive working conditions. Employers are required to provide the following benefits to workers:
The employer must offer the H-2A worker the same wages as comparable U.S. workers. This follows the prevailing wage established by the DOL.
The employer must provide the worker with an earnings statement detailing the worker’s total earnings, the hours of work offered, and the hours actually worked.
The employer must provide transportation to and from the worker’s temporary home as well as transportation to the next workplace when the contract is fulfilled.
The employer must provide housing to all H-2A workers. The housing must be inspected by DOL and must satisfy appropriate minimum federal standards.
The employer must provide the necessary tools and supplies to perform the work.
The employer must provide meals or facilities in which the workers can prepare food.
The employer must provide worker’s compensa- tion insurance to the H-2A workers.
Hillbilly D
June 14th, 2011
5:08 pm
Jay
A good many of the subsidies in this area go for cattle. There is some for corn and soybeans but not that much, and a lot of that goes to feed the cows. The really big agriculture up here is broilers and I could be wrong but I’m not aware of much in the way of subsidies for them.
The people who are actually making out the best at farming are those who’ve figured out how to get folks to pay to walk through a cornfield or to ride on a wagon and look at pumpkins. There’s one born every minute I guess.
Mr Right
June 14th, 2011
5:08 pm
Why are they spooked? It’s because they are ILLEGAL! They need to be spooked.
AmVet
June 14th, 2011
5:09 pm
“Regarding ethanol tax breaks.”
Oooh wee. Archer Daniels Midland is not gonna be happy…
wet wiccan
June 14th, 2011
5:09 pm
Times have certainly changed. I grew up in Kansas in the early 1960s. It was common for teenage boys to spend their summers off from school following the wheat harvest. I remember my brother did it for 2 summers.
pogo
June 14th, 2011
5:09 pm
Whining is an art that farmers perfected years ago. They whine, the government intervenes with subsidies. They whine, the government intervenes with tax breaks for them that no other business has access to. They whine, the government, through its lack of enforcement of immigration policy, provides them with a slave class of cheap labor such as the hispanics to make them rich. Meanwhile, all of us non-farmers have to foot the social bill of having these immigrants here,
The mythical small farmer struggling to make ends meet is a thing of the past. We now have a new breed of large farmers that have become totally dependent upon taxpayer dollars and special government “deals” to make themselves rich. And if they don’t get their way to sustain their high level of living, they whine. All of you that think that farmers are struggling should come to South Georgia and look at the onion and the pine-straw barons that have built their empires solely on having cheap -illegal immigrant labor. I laugh when someone states that the farmers are struggling. It is bullcrap.
Farming is a business and as a business it should have to subscribe to the same rules and laws of every other American business. If they cannot compete without illegal alien labor or special subsidies or tax breaks, then they should go under.
I suspect Jay’s empathy is not so much with the farmers. His real motive is having all of those democratic votes for progressive candidates that he thinks will be provided by the illegal immigrants who, if nationalized, will surely vote democratic because they too will become part of the entitlement nation that Jay and the liberals have created. Hell, they already are.
The Leg Lamp is a "major award"......
June 14th, 2011
5:09 pm
Joe Mama
June 14th, 2011
5:07 pm
So then, in your mind, who’s at fault?
The bill?
The evil GOP legislators?
The greedy farmers?
The unemployed?
Those who do not WANT to do this type of work?
Just curious.
ty webb
June 14th, 2011
5:10 pm
“even overreacting to the anti-immigrant sections of the bill,…”
Jay,
“anti-immigrant”? good one…and what sections are those?
The Leg Lamp is a "major award"......
June 14th, 2011
5:12 pm
More “Hope and Change”…
‘In five days, the administration will be in violation of the War Powers Resolution’ on Libya…
THE OTHER WAR: Secret US, Afghan talks could see troops stay for decades…
Real Scooter
June 14th, 2011
5:13 pm
md
June 14th, 2011
4:59 pm
Your idea would not only create a protest but a full blown riot!
Mr Right
June 14th, 2011
5:13 pm
Hillbilly D— I own about 200 cattle and I’m not aware of any subsidies for cattle.
Hillbilly D
June 14th, 2011
5:13 pm
I’ll leave y’all to argue about farming while I go work in the garden until dark. Y’all get everything settled before I get back.
Joe Mama
June 14th, 2011
5:14 pm
Mr. Right — “With high unemployment why can’t farmers find LEGAL workers ? I kind of get the feeling it’s like why work when you can sit back and do nothing and the gov will take care of you.”
This sort of work — harvesting produce — is short-term, seasonal work. It’s not a steady gig most of the time. You move around a lot, to wherever the ripe produce is, and you work for whoever will hire you. The farmer who pays you to harvest cabbages probably isn’t the same guy who will hire you to pick onions, and there are probably different farmers who will hire you at different times to pick peaches, blueberries and whatever other produce there is in your region.
When there’s nothing to be picked, there’s no work and no income. This sort of ag work is *not* a career. That’s why few Americans do it.
My wife’s dad used to be an accountant for one of the big ag outfits on the West Coast, and my grandpas farmed on the side (when they weren’t down in the Ohio coal mines). I’ve picked corn, cabbages, peppers, beans, grapes and I’ve even cut/baled/stored hay and alfalfa. It’s hard work and it doesn’t pay well, or even regularly. That’s why it’s hard to get Americans to do it.
AmVet
June 14th, 2011
5:14 pm
wiccan, now you’re talkin’ my language.
We had this mini “army” of men and equipment (tractors, combines, trucks, etc) that came into our tiny town every summer that contracted with the locals to harvest the wheat. They started out in Texas and moved north with the summer, all the way up into the Dakotas.
Which brings up a good point. Do any/most of the young men in places like Americus and Albany and Macon, work for the local farmers in the summer?
J bills
June 14th, 2011
5:14 pm
@JAY The farmers do not participate because they want to be free to pay slave wages and no benefits. They also do not want to have to abide by Federal Rules regarding the employment of H2A visa holders. Sic The program has a number of benefits for employers, most notably the assurance of a legal, documented workforce and the reduction of labor turnover with the resulting loss in productivity. The program is not without costs, however. The negotiation of bureaucratic hurdles in receiving labor certification and issuing visas to the workers can take time and cause frustration.
Hillbilly D
June 14th, 2011
5:15 pm
MR
There are some, follow Jay’s link. They aren’t nearly as lucrative as people would think, though. In my area, for a big operation, they’d probably average $3000-$4000 a year. Individually, that’s not all that much but multiply it times the whole country and it adds up.
Dusty
June 14th, 2011
5:18 pm
Hey HillBilly,
Don’t knock us poor ol’ city folks who might think riding on a wagon looking at pumpkins is fun. Well, I haven’t looked at pumpkins but I surely do like to ride a piece and gaze at the mountains. Now that’s free but it can’t be beat. Makes me want to go just thinking about it.
josef
June 14th, 2011
5:18 pm
Well, well, well…are they reaping what they sowed or not? There went a lot of taxes from the farms just when we needed them most, there go a lot of farms down the tubes, just when the banks least need to go foreclosing, and HEY Y’ALL there went the peaches for the ice cream and the watermelon just in time for the celebration of our independence…
Folks tried to tell ‘em, but would they listen? Ohhh, nooo. But hey, we can just feast on piss and vinager since we still seem to have a good supply of that…
But, as Granddaddy always said, act in haste, repent in leisure…
Contractor
June 14th, 2011
5:19 pm
Why aren’t the unemployed or welfare communities forced to work in these fields? Or why aren’t criminal chain gangs forced to give back to society instead of taking from it?
Bosch
June 14th, 2011
5:20 pm
Leg Lamp,
For one thing, I hate conference calls, they bore me to death and it’s hard for my ADD self to keep up.
Two, no, I’m no upset over illegals leaving the State — I don’t lie awake at night worrying over such things either way.
Three, I’m going to go fix me a drink.
Later gators.
Joe Mama
June 14th, 2011
5:20 pm
Leg Lamp — “So then, in your mind, who’s at fault?”
I really don’t think any one party’s at fault here. I think that farm employers have to take some of the blame, because they’ve been getting over with undocumented immigrant labor for a long time.
I think that GA lawmakers deserve part of the blame, because they didn’t have to shove this through as fast as they did, and I don’t think they’re prepared to deal with the blowback.
I think that Federal lawmakers deserve part of the blame, because with tough enforcement and a vigorous ‘bracero’ program, we could have plenty of inexpensive LEGAL immigrant labor.
I don’t really blame the smaller farmers and the immigrant laborers; they’re simply trying to hang on economically and I don’t think either group really had a voice in how this bill got written.
I also don’t see how you can blame Americans who don’t want to do that sort of work — there’s no future in it and it doesn’t pay well at all. You might get a handful of desperate Yanquis taking the jobs on, but of the few that do, I think even fewer will stick it out for more than a week.
As I said, I’m okay with paying more so that the workers can have a living wage. Heck, if wages for farm labor were better, you might get more Americans to take it on. Isn’t that what industries have to do when they have a labor shortage?
Uncle Jed
June 14th, 2011
5:21 pm
The AG industry will find a solution. Allowing our laws to be broken was never a sound strategy. I would rather pay 50 cents more per pound of produce than stoop to supporting lawlessness, which seems to be a case of one not looking past the end of one’s nose.
The Leg Lamp is a "major award"......
June 14th, 2011
5:21 pm
Boy, here’s a real shock…
http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2011/06/obama-campaign-sends-around-misleading-dnc-video-on-gop-debate.html#tp
Bosch
June 14th, 2011
5:21 pm
One last thing before I pour that drink:
Hillybilly,
I thought the same thing earlier about big farmers v. small farmers. Aren’t big farmers usually contractors for big AgriBusiness firms? I wonder how Saxby plays into all this and what he thinks.
Soothsayer
June 14th, 2011
5:23 pm
“If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”
– Anonymous
Joe Mama
June 14th, 2011
5:24 pm
Mr. Right — “I own about 200 cattle”
Dairy or beef cattle? Now you’re in my pop’s line of work.
J bills
June 14th, 2011
5:24 pm
@JoeMama Thats exactly why the farmers do not participate …. They have become accustomed to exploiting Illegal labor,and they feel that they should not have to follow the law because they were so used to breaking It for so long ! American citizens have said ENOUGH,and now the States are finally starting to listen. It’s time to RESPECT OUR LAWS,and Illegals are ILLEGAL!
Mr Right
June 14th, 2011
5:24 pm
I laugh when someone states that the farmers are struggling. It is bullcrap.
Pogo@ 5:09
It’s funny when someone else is struggling I guess. Farming is like any other business, some do good some struggle I happen to be in the middle I’m making it but wonder for how much longer. By the way I have farm with only family workers.
.
Mr Right
June 14th, 2011
5:27 pm
Joe– Dairy
1811/1801 - 0311/0317
June 14th, 2011
5:27 pm
Joe Mama/Good Fight:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PzwHl42DLlg&feature=related
Soothsayer
June 14th, 2011
5:29 pm
Leg: why, I think that was a great video!
AmVet
June 14th, 2011
5:30 pm
http://i.pbase.com/o3/15/850715/1/133359625.pbNTxGs0.DSC_0679a.jpg
It may not look like much now, but there was a time when that thing was going non-stop with fully loaded wheat trucks coming and empty ones leaving.
The largest wheat producing county in the largest wheat producing state in the largest wheat producing country in the world.
And I can still remember the wonderful taste of those 10 cent Pepsi Colas.
I’ve been gone for 40 years, so I’ve completely lost track of farming, and I imagine old man Blankenship and Mr. Wyckoff are long dead by now, but I wonder if anyone in their family took over their farms. Sadly, I suspect pogo is right. Massive conglomerates own most of the land now.
But back then it was 16 hour days when I was 16. And I loved it.
My first real taste of making money and American capitalism…
Dusty
June 14th, 2011
5:30 pm
Something mighty strange here. We have a FARM Labor CRISIS ’cause nobody wants to pick peaches ’tis said. But; I’ve been buying peaches in the store for $.49 /lb. Some crisis! I guess those peaches fell off the trees and rolled into Atlanta.
Which reminds me I’m having some PEACH CRISP for dinner. Soooo long.. until the next crisis!.
Joe Mama
June 14th, 2011
5:32 pm
Mr. Right — My dad’s an agricultural scientist and a professor at a major Suthun university. His undergraduate degree was in microbiology, but his specialty is dairy and beef cattle.
I was running around underfoot on dairy farms before I was old enough to have a bicycle.
Do you anticipate any problems to your operation arising out of this situation? For example, do you think you might have problems obtaining feed for your herd?
I don’t know what you feed your livestock, but if it’s something that was normally harvested with undocumented immigrant labor, I could see you running into a BIG problem awful soon.
josef
June 14th, 2011
5:33 pm
Uncle Jed
.” I would rather pay 50 cents more per pound of produce than stoop to supporting lawlessness”
Looks pretty much like you’re about to get your druthers….that is if that pound makes it to the shelves at all…
JOE MAMA
@ 5:15
Good points, there about the nature of migrant labor…but, hey, don’t you know those blueberries just magically appear in little plastic wrapped packages put there by fairies overnight…enjoy them while you can, though, Deal and his lot are out to be rid of the fairies, too!
Jokes aside, this is but the tip of the iceberg (lettuce?) The hospitality industry is on the line and good ole convention in the colonies capital of occupied Atlanta is gonna cost a good bit more when we’re emancipated from the yoke of the foreign invaders from the south…
Soothsayer
June 14th, 2011
5:33 pm
Amvet: I had to open that in Internet Explorer. Hey, isn’t that sorghum in the foreground?
wet wiccan
June 14th, 2011
5:34 pm
AmVet
I thought you might have been a part of those summer harvests. There used to be a grain elevator owned by the Garvey family that was one mile long that you could see for miles.
1811/1801 - 0311/0317
June 14th, 2011
5:34 pm
Joe Mama:
Here I am doing your research again !
Assuming Jay’s figures are true :
@ $8 an hour X 40 hours a week X 4 weeks ……. that comes to about $1,280 per month.
A private first class in the infantry makes $1,644 a month (plus food, medical and clothing) but before you go “see !” remember that’s for work @ 24 hrs. X 7 X 4 or $2.44 per hour …………….. AND your getting shot at, etc.
So ……………… the fields of South Georgia are still a heck of a deal !
willydoit?
June 14th, 2011
5:35 pm
I think the bill did exactly as it was intended. So we pay a little more for our vegatables, the money we save in our hospitals and schools will be well worth it.
I have never understood why America ever let Mexico get the way it is…take the damn country over and help them repair it…we do it all over the world, why not in our own backyard???
1811/1801 - 0311/0317
June 14th, 2011
5:36 pm
Dusty :
LOL ! Fabrication of a crisis for pollitical purposes.
It’s very hard to pull off now in the age of the internet ……… that has leveled the playing field.
josef
June 14th, 2011
5:37 pm
Speaking of peaches, are those Georgia peaches on the shelves at $.49 a pound…? And I’m not being a snarky jackass, do we really check the origins of those fresh fruits and vegetables we consume at relatively cheap prices year round now?
The Leg Lamp is a "major award"......
June 14th, 2011
5:39 pm
josef
June 14th, 2011
5:37 pm
Good point. We don’t want to slip in any of those foreign peaches like Vietnamese peaches, Bangladesh peaches, or Florida peaches.
Joe Mama
June 14th, 2011
5:39 pm
1811 — “Here I am doing your research again !”
And it’s so kind of you to do it.
“@ $8 an hour X 40 hours a week X 4 weeks ……. that comes to about $1,280 per month.”
“A private first class in the infantry makes $1,644 a month (plus food, medical and clothing) but before you go “see !” remember that’s for work @ 24 hrs. X 7 X 4 or $2.44 per hour …………….. AND your getting shot at, etc.”
Yeah, um, harvesting work isn’t an 8-hour day, buddy. And that PFC’s getting three hots and a cot, along with his work clothes, full medical coverage, life insurance and a pension plan. The ag worker’s getting none of that.
“So ……………… the fields of South Georgia are still a heck of a deal !”
Still got to differ with you, buddy, but I agree that not getting shot at is DEFINITELY a selling point for those jobs.
AmVet
June 14th, 2011
5:41 pm
It is, Soothsayer. (LOTS of cows out there!)
A tiny little slice of heaven called Perth, Kansas…
I went to the two room school there until the seventh grade.
Seems like a hundred years ago…
josef, I just bought some peaches, today. They’re from South Carolina. This may not sit well with the local yokels, but the Cali peaches are, IMHO, the best…
willydoit?
June 14th, 2011
5:41 pm
Why is it that the liberals are for keeping illegal aliens here in America working for slave wages to keep our groceries cheap? but won’t let us drill for oil and build new refineries to keep our gas prices cheap??
Joe Mama
June 14th, 2011
5:42 pm
josef — “And I’m not being a snarky jackass, do we really check the origins of those fresh fruits and vegetables we consume at relatively cheap prices year round now?”
The ones you see fresh in winter are generally from South America, but sometimes way overseas, too. Grapes from South Africa, asparagus from Peru and all sorts of fruit from Chile.
Good little liberal
June 14th, 2011
5:42 pm
As in 1866, it’s going to be tough weening Georgia off slave labor.
Slavery was the easy answer back then just as it is now and funny thing: it was the Democrats who fought against emancipation of the slaves back then also.
Democrats. they never change.
Mr Right
June 14th, 2011
5:42 pm
Joe–so you know what it’s like to be on a dairy farm, most people don’t have a clue! Heard of some who thought chocolate milk come from brown cows or some who thought powdered milk comes from dry cows. Ha No we won’t have any problems since we raise most of our own feed for our cows.
The Leg Lamp is a "major award"......
June 14th, 2011
5:43 pm
willydoit?
June 14th, 2011
5:41 pm
Harumph, harumph!!
josef
June 14th, 2011
5:43 pm
All y’all waxing nostalgic for the farm…not me…I like it here in the air conditioned comfort getting paid to sit here at the computer and jabber with the neighbors across town, too…most miserable times of my life was when I was forced into that d*mned cotton field…no siree, not a pleasant memory…