cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/32291701
The reason is simple: an increase in immigration enforcement, including high-profile ICE raids, shook Texas farm workers to their core. The news filtered fast that workers—regardless of legal status—chose safety over a salary.
Farmers, who had been working with their crews for decades, described the loss as “devastating” and “unprecedented.” This is alarming as most farms are founded upon immigrant labor, both legal and illegal, creating a domino effect for the food system as a whole.
. . . When farm workers vanish, the effects are felt far beyond the fields. Livestock is untended, crops go unpicked, food production declines, and food prices dramatically increase. In Texas alone, where specialty vegetables and fruits must be hand-picked, worker shortages jeopardize entire harvest seasons.
This results in fewer foods on grocery store shelves, higher prices for families nationwide, and a greater reliance on imports. Threads on Reddit and YouTube are already predicting price hikes and empty produce shelves.
I was talking to a friend there and he told me people in the suburbs are having trouble getting their lawns mowed now. So glad I got out of there.
a corporation that cannot pay labor what it requires (ie the market) should choose: shut down or shut down. profit is stolen wage, too. So… yeah.
Remember kids: corporations are not people. Unlike babies, corporations can be thrown out with the bath water.
Pay labor a living wage or get fucked.
Totally get it, super on board, but uh, to circle back to the here and now for a second, we kinda need food? So the situation as it is right now really blows.
Some people are joking about $70 salads, but also there is a point in there. Farming sucks ass a job and if you paid people enough to incentivise folks to do it, that’s something not a lot of farmers can do, especially small ones.
So what would an ideal solution be with the technology we have now?
Syndicalism. Farmers co-ops. Food from your lawn.
Have you talked to the average American about agriculture? They would starve themselves in a few months.
Also, you would have to come up with rules on who grows what and how seed savings would work. You need to keep things that can cross pollinate away from each other.
Now you know the point of Leviticus 19:19 and Deuteronomy 22:9.
Not really elaborating on that much… Not everyone can afford to drive out to the country to work on a farm for food, and a lot of people don’t have lawns.
I’m not saying a post reply on lemmy will cover what I mean or fix everything ; but my examples are things we can start with and they don’t hurt. Recovery from capitalism will take a long time.
Look, I’m all for dismantling capitalism, but you do your cause disservice if you criticize something, act like you have the answers, and then don’t deliver. If you don’t have the answers just say so up front.
is it a disservice to the slave to leave his chains or even discuss it, even if he has nowhere to go after?
“Complaining about a problem without posing a solution is called whining.” Teddy Roosevelt
I’m not saying to not discuss it. I’m not saying to stay a slave.
When were talking about people needing to eat, though, you’re gonna need some solutions if you want to enact change. No one can do a revolution on an empty stomach, and if you’re going to hand wave basic survival, you’re not going to get anyone to follow you.
Done. Your salad is now $74.99
Cows eat salad…here’s your $3900.99 double McChicken, 1/4 pounder delight with bacon bits sir! It’s served over a Mexican cheese platen…oh don’t eat the platen! That’s just to keep the moisture in!
if that’s what means labor gets a living wage (which also assumes I get one), and the corporation makes no profit and the workers own the means of production- cool!
Sounds like capitalism has failed then at that point. Seize the means brother.
oh wow, only a 17% price increase?
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The Texas farmers…“How can Biden do this to us?”
Every single one of these people in every story still supports Trump. Makes no sense.
Cult
Cipolla explains why, see rule 3 and also why you don’t understand, see rule 4
These are Cipolla’s five fundamental laws of stupidity:
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Always and inevitably, everyone underestimates the number of stupid individuals in circulation.
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The probability that a certain person (will) be stupid is independent of any other characteristic of that person.
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A stupid person is a person who causes losses to another person or to a group of persons while himself deriving no gain and even possibly incurring losses.
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Non-stupid people always underestimate the damaging power of stupid individuals. In particular, non-stupid people constantly forget that at all times and places, and under any circumstances, to deal and/or associate with stupid people always turns out to be a costly mistake.
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A stupid person is the most dangerous type of person.
The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits.
Also, you can’t make things idiot proof, they will always build a bigger idiot.
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I think it boils down to this…
Hardcore MAGA can’t admit when they’re wrong. These are the parents that never say sorry to their kids. They are ALWAYS right. They will be homeless on the street before Trump did this to them. They’re team players, not individuals with a compass.
Just sheep.
Thanks Obama.
But where did the workers go?
“Where did the lighter fluid come from?”
Ain’t you redneck chucklefucks glad you voted red? Enjoy losing your farm.
“BAW-HA-HA-HA” - Canada.
Haha… Until you remember that we get most of our fresh produce from the States we are going to pay for this in the end.
Not true for me in PEI. We are actively NOT buying US products. It really hasn’t been a problem at all for us at this point.
The only fresh produce we’ve had a problem getting is sweet onions and lettuce (sometimes). We can get red and white onions from mexico and other locations, just the sweet ones come from the states. I’m sure this will change over the growing season.
We’re setting up a rig to grow our own lettuce and a few other things year round.
I hope we see more of this and the farmers that voted red, feel the pain they voted for. I don’t care if it cause a bigger issue. At this point I’m ready to rebuild America
At least it’s not just farms in California.
Have the day you voted for, Texas.
Ironic that about 40% of them didn’t vote, so I sincerely hope those 40% are getting rat fucked like the rest of us who voted for sanity are.
This is the ultimate Texan dog-that-caught-the-car moment. I remember talking about this in school in Texas 25 years ago when Republicans were complaining about immigration. Several students brought up that the farms are all tended by “seasonal workers,” which meant immigrant labor, so what was the Republican answer to that? They didn’t have one, of course, not a realistic one. It was the same talking points then as now of “American workers” filling the gap, and even then those jobs didn’t pay a living wage, so no American would take them. I bet they pay worse now.
They had 25 years to figure this out, but of course they had no intention of figuring it out.
They didn’t have one, of course, not a realistic one.
When I try to have discussions around this I often take elements of their language and point out that market forces make it unattractive for citizens to work there, but it can be good for immigrants. Sometimes they get it, but often too indoctrinated into the republican party to act differently.
They’re gonna arrest the immigrant farm workers and then lease them right back to the same farms as slaves.
There it is. This is how the money flows. Private prison labor.
The funny thing is that with Trump sabotaging the US dollar migrant labor may just stop being a thing on it’s own.
To all those farmers, the only thing I could possibly say is,
“I hope you have the day you voted for”.
Very predictable result of criminalizing the people who do the work.
It’d be funny if it wasn’t going to affect the rest of the population that didn’t vote for a psychotic nutjob.
