Farming Like It’s 1699

[rangerrebew]

   Farming Like It’s 1699
By Mark Krikorian

December 10, 2019 3:27 PM


It’s cheaper to invest in congressmen than in automation

The House is expected to vote Wednesday on the hilariously misnamed Farm Workforce Modernization Act, which would “modernize” agricultural labor right back to the 17th century.

At the core of the bill are several indentured-labor schemes intended to tie current illegal aliens and future “temporary” workers to farm jobs for four to ten years before giving them green cards. The reason for the indenture system is that farmers know from experience that once the illegal aliens or visa workers get green cards, almost all will flee the medieval labor system that prevails in much of fresh fruit and vegetable agriculture.

Fact sheets on the bill are here and here. It provides immediate amnesty to illegal aliens (and their dependents) who have (or claim to have) worked at least part time in agriculture over the past two years. The number of beneficiaries is estimated to be at least 1.5 million.

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/farming-like-its-1699/

[rangerrebew]

Farm bill panned as mass ‘amnesty’ for illegal immigrants heads to vote in House
 
By Adam Shaw | Fox News
 
The H-2A visa program has tripled in size over the last decade, with a quarter million temporary farm workers coming in this year; Dan Springer reports from Snohomish County, Washington.

As all eyes are on the House impeachment inquiry, elsewhere an agricultural bill that could provide a path to legal status for millions of illegal immigrants is rumbling through the chamber — leading immigration hawks to accuse lawmakers of trying to sneak in an amnesty while the nation is distracted.

The Farm Workforce Modernization Act, passed in the House Judiciary Committee last month, is scheduled for a vote on the House floor Wednesday. The bill provides a process for undocumented farmworkers to seek a temporary five-and-a-half-year “Certified Agricultural Worker” status if they have worked for approximately six months in the industry in the last two years.

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/farm-bill-panned-as-amnesty-for-illegal-immigrants-heads-to-vote-in-house

[Smokin Joe]

Uh huh. Agriculture.....

[PeteS in CA]

Same topic as http://www.gopbriefingroom.com/index.php/topic,385362.0.html .

Am I one of the few here that does not know that much agricultural field work is still hand labor? Just how does Mark Krikorian imagine the asparagus he had for dinner last night or last week is picked? The National Review article title is moronic clickbait.

[Smokin Joe]

Same topic as http://www.gopbriefingroom.com/index.php/topic,385362.0.html .

Am I one of the few here that does not know that much agricultural field work is still hand labor? Just how does Mark Krikorian imagine the asparagus he had for dinner last night or last week is picked? The National Review article title is moronic clickbait.

We raised tobacco. Stoop labor at its finest.
I am amazed how many other crops have some machine that will do the work of a small army...

[PeteS in CA]

We raised tobacco. Stoop labor at its finest.
I am amazed how many other crops have some machine that will do the work of a small army...

Back in the very early 60s my Dad raised tomatoes one year. It was all hand picked, with a swarm of pickers going through the field every couple of days for a couple of weeks. Fast-forward to 1970, and tomatoes were machine harvested. To do this, UC Davis:

* Developed a harvester that uprooted or clipped of every plant, separated the berries from the plants, and had a conveyor belt where several people hand sorted the tossers from the keepers;

* Developed a tomato variety whose skin was thick enough to withstand the harvesting process and whose berries ripened more or less at the same time.

But a lot of vegetable and fruit crops are not suitable for machine harvesting. I realize that a lot of city people have few clues about how food arrives on their tables, but I would have thought a writer for National Review would be informed enough and smart enough not to come up with such a stupid article title.

[Smokin Joe]

Back in the very early 60s my Dad raised tomatoes one year. It was all hand picked, with a swarm of pickers going through the field every couple of days for a couple of weeks. Fast-forward to 1970, and tomatoes were machine harvested. To do this, UC Davis:

* Developed a harvester that uprooted or clipped of every plant, separated the berries from the plants, and had a conveyor belt where several people hand sorted the tossers from the keepers;

* Developed a tomato variety whose skin was thick enough to withstand the harvesting process and whose berries ripened more or less at the same time.

But a lot of vegetable and fruit crops are not suitable for machine harvesting. I realize that a lot of city people have few clues about how food arrives on their tables, but I would have thought a writer for National Review would be informed enough and smart enough not to come up with such a stupid article title.

My grandfather grew four rows of tomatoes on the creek side of his tobacco crops. It turns out that tomatoes are susceptible to mosiac virus, as is tobacco, and these served as a warning strip to infection in the fields so the crops could be sprayed before the virus got a solid hold in the cash crop.

We, too spent countless hours picking tomatoes while kids when the tobacco was growing, and to this day I still hate reaching down on a nice-looking tomato to find the bottom is rotten...

[conservativevoter]

Does anyone really think that genetic 'improvements' actually improve the quality of the tomato?

How many cases of disease have come from the fields where the new farmhands work and 'unload'?  Maybe someone thinks it's okay to fertilize produce with their own excrement or urine?  uh... NO!, it's not ok.  Once the shit hits the ground, it stays there and continues to carry what the previous owner had.  One of the reasons for the recalls of raw lettuce and other produce.   

[PeteS in CA]

Does anyone really think that genetic 'improvements' actually improve the quality of the tomato? 1.

How many cases of disease have come from the fields where the new farmhands work and 'unload'? 3.  Maybe someone thinks it's okay to fertilize produce with their own excrement or urine? 2.  uh... NO!, it's not ok.  Once the shit hits the ground, it stays there and continues to carry what the previous owner had.  One of the reasons for the recalls of raw lettuce and other produce.   

1. Are you under the mis-impression that virtually anything mankind has eaten for many centuries has not been selectively bred or hybridized?

2. So it would be news to you that farmers and/or their labor contractors provide portacans for the field workers?

3. Do you have evidence of this? Or were you just repeating some claim you heard someone make?

Here are the real reasons for a couple of recent recalls:

https://www.sfgate.com/health/article/SALINAS-VALLEY-Spinach-E-coli-strain-found-in-2486600.php - wild pigs

https://www.9news.com/article/news/nation-world/romaine-lettuce-linked-to-another-e-coli-outbreak-but-fda-says-outbreak-appears-to-be-over/507-1be6f48b-b46f-4bdc-a194-ff9ebabfb501 - run-off from a nearby cattle feedlot

[roamer_1]

Does anyone really think that genetic 'improvements' actually improve the quality of the tomato?

No, that is not true. If you want quality, go for legacy or ancient varieties that cannot hold up to modern mechanization, or that ripen less uniformly... Uniformity is what modern hybrids go for, durability and green picking too... Taste is hardly considered.

Legacy garden varieties beat the pants off what you can find in the store, in taste and abundance.

[Fishrrman]

Hopefully this amnesty bill (cloaked as a "farm bill") will quickly end up in a Senate trash can someplace...