What would happen if we didn't have foreigners to pick crops? A look at Japan

What difference does it make? Legal or illegal, that status can change with just the stroke of a pen, as it is with most regulation.

 

Or just automation. Not sure if we have enough old japanese people to tend our gardens....

 

In other countries with higher labor costs, people typically do not eat out as much. Maybe they'll eat fast food once every 2 weeks at most.
When there are less expensive casual food services they usually try to cut the needed amount of labor as much as possible. Look at Ikea for instance, in their cafeterias they have signs telling everyone to clear their table and put away their plates. Or the type of food will already be prepared and will not require very much preparation time every time a customer orders. Often times in Europe cafes will have "daily specials" where they have cooked all the same food together right before lunch time and then they just put it on each customer's plate when they come in. In Japanese noodle shops they try to quickly shoe customers out to make room for other customers coming in. This helps cut labor costs because the same employees can serve several times as many customers, with more customer turnover. Or they may offer substantial discounts if you come in to eat during the slower hours. To sum it up, it basically forces the customer to modify their behavior a little bit so each employee can serve more customers.

You'll also see a lot of teenagers and young adults doing these jobs, and in many cases semi-retired part-time working older people, even though they may be moving a little slow. These same old people might be considered too old to work in the food serving business if they were in the U.S.

 

Nonsense. We don't have 'illegal' crop pickers here, and our pickers are very well paid. Our produce is therefore expensive, yet everyone still buys it. Whatever pricing there is, is whatever pricing you become accustomed to. You adjust your lifestyle accordingly.

 

This is true. Where I live, eating out at a decent cafe or restaurant will set back a family of five $100, at least. And that isn't high end dining, that's local neighbourhood places. If you want to go upmarket, you're looking at $100 a head.

We also don't have those huge, awful 'family' joints that America seems to like. I don't know if they're cheap in America, but the very few we have here struggle to survive, despite the more modest prices. Most close within a year or two of opening. No one is stupid enough to pay good money to sit in a cavernous barn with zero atmosphere, eating insultingly low quality food. We much prefer our quirky cafes and small independent chef-run restaurants.

 

Here's why it makes a difference ...

- When I say they are here legally, it means they've been documented and background checked. It means some convicted murderer or rapist or robber or known gang member is not let in claiming to want to do farm work.
- It also means they are given a valid Tax ID # and ID documents
- It means that there are conditions attached to their presence in our country
- It means that they cannot be blackmailed into working for less than the minimum wage
- And it means they are counted. The Department of Agriculture knows approximately how many temporary workers are needed and this can be shared with our Immigration authorities. When they are counted, we can let in the number of workers we need and then shut down the flow when we have enough. The flow of workers can be turned up or down as needed. Illegal immigration makes an accurate count difficult to assess.

Since you're a farmer, I'm interested in your feedback. For what it's worth, I hold a great deal of respect for farmers.

 

You are a racist.

And you are wrong. I live in an agricultural area, through peer pressure we got rid of the illegals working in construction and agriculture. Nobody went out of business, nobody is complaining.

My neighbor used to have 4 illegals working for him, they lived in a house he had at the back of his fields. After he stopped using illegals, he hired one US citizen who has been working for him full time for 3+ years. All the work gets done, all the laws are obeyed. In fact, my neighbor is happier with the current situation.

 

It makes a huge difference. I want people to immigrate to the USA because they understand the USA values and want to become Americans, because they voluntarily reject their old home and want to make a new home in the USA and living American ideals.

 

I reject your values without ever knowing what they may be. In America we are supposedly free to live by our own values, as long they remain within the law.

I will never willingly conform to society' expectations. I am my own person.

 

Read what I wrote, this time actually read what I wrote not what you think I wrote.

A nation is a group of people with common ideals who agree to live under a common umbrella of laws and principles.

You are not free to live by your own values if those values run counter to the ideals of the nation. In the USA, there is wide latitude, but there are boundaries.

 

most importantly our treasonous lib commies want everything centralized in Washington to greatly diminish or eliminate individual liberty

 

This is a joke!

Average Americans no matter the hourly wage are incapable of farm labor type work! Most Americans would not last until lunch break!

Farmers don't make enough profits, on average, to allow the labor rates to increase much. So even if farm labor wages could be increased for lazy Americans to work it won't be much! This dictates that farm labor rates can never be high enough to entice lazy Americans to consider full-time farm work.

And PRETENDING for a moment farm labor rates could be significantly increased, American consumers refuse to pay higher prices. And if you forced farm labor rates to whatever wage, $50/hour, this forces all other wages in the workforce to increase as well. Massive inflation! Would be the end of US food exports...

 

I'm not alluding to Americans. And if farmers are as poor as you believe (and I believe there's no such thing as 'a poor farmer') then they'll need to put their prices up a bit to cover the extra wages of the indigenous workforce? Simple??

 

Indigineous workforce won't do it.

Will not take the work,
Beyond dawn to dusk every day.
Food is extremely low margin work so minimum wage for maximum hours. Hard labour.

Farmers are rich in the potential value of their unsellable land.

If you put your prices up, people will buy from elsewhere.
It's a competitive market place. Global in size.

If you have a bad season, other countries haven't.
You aren't ever in control of the weather or the prices.



How do you get indigenous workforce into the fields at harvest time?
End benefits and student loans. Make them into peasants.

Better to use people who can make greater value from the same money. Migrant labour who take it home.

 

If they're picking illegally the farmer should be prosecuted for hiring them.

 

beyond absurd as usual. People need to eat so will pay any price necessary to do so.

 

Believe what you wish...

 

People will continue to eat, but they will not eat expensive fresh fruits and vegetables with a high cost of labor. They'll eat beans, rice, potatoes, corn, and wheat harvested by machines.

 

That’s wrong of course since the cost of picking fresh fruits is a tiny percent of the supermarket cost. Do you understand now?

 

Is that true though? It is certainly true that the cost growing and harvesting wheat is a very small percentage of the total cost of a loaf of bread, but much must happen before wheat becomes bread.

Fresh produce is quite different, there is a great deal of manual labor required in the growing and harvesting of fresh produce crops and very little labor required(relatively) in the distribution of those crops. A box of cabbage is still a box of cabbage.

Compare the farm gate prices to supermarket prices.

But you're still missing the big picture. The farmers do not set the price of goods, the market does. The best farmers can do to influence the price of their commodities is simply stop growing those commodities, and I doubt many folks will be rioting in the streets if Arugala is no longer available at an affordable price.

 

Well that's not really true. People buy orange juice made from New Zealand grown oranges in New Zealand. It's not very sweet because the climate isn't very warm and sunny, but the supermarkets still sell majority domestically grown vegetables, fruits and orange juice.

In 2018, New Zealand actually grew more fruit than the domestic market could buy because export profits were so good.

 

|Is that it then? Or did you forget what you want to say?

 

YOU ignore the fact that a farmer does not care what the labor prices are...as long as the consumer will pay the price! No business cares what the wages are...as long as the consumer will pay the price! What the consumer will or will not consume 100% defines the acceptable costs of production...and labor. As long as you IGNORE these 'simple' facts I won't have much to say...

 

no you are. Supply and demand will work for food or any good or service. Its possible that in a very successful country eventually no one would want to pick crops by hand and the business would go out of the country. But eventually that country too would face the same problem. So?

 

So, that food, or good, or service, would no longer be available to consumers...at any price.