[kersplody]

Look at UC Davis Gifford Center’s April 2024 “Farm Labor Issues in the 2020s” summary report: https://gifford.ucdavis.edu/events/past/april-4-2024-farm-la...

Very few U.S.-born workers respond to job ads for seasonal crop work, Show up when work begins, or Stick around through the harvest season. "Even when wages reach—or exceed $20–$30 per hour, seasonal U.S. workers overwhelmingly opt out of field labor. That persistent gap is why American agriculture depends so heavily on immigrant and guest‐worker programs, and why mechanization continues to accelerate."

[sys32768]

Note that the same report says legal, temporary "H-2A workers are more productive and provide labor insurance for producers of perishable commodities, but cost $5 to $10 an hour more than settled farm workers because of recruitment, transportation, and housing costs."

[aksjsnxkkxx]

The simple counter is to offer higher wages. We absolutely have the capital and tech to ensure people can make a decent living doing farm labor.

It would require less billionaires and less chatgpt wrappers with billion dollar valuations.

[msgodel]

This. Labor markets cut both ways but you have to actually follow the rules for it to work.

[2muchcoffeeman]

Wait till you find out how much legal workers who make clothes in America make.

[acjohnson55]

I found the most Planet Money episode on this eye-opening: https://www.npr.org/2025/07/11/1255526971/garment-workers-cl...

[msgodel]

Go move to South America if you think their workers have something we don't and will make your life so much better.

[2muchcoffeeman]

That’s a silly response. Why do you think workers are exploited? You say we need to play by the roles, but you’re going to balk at the cost of playing by those rules.

[msgodel]

We have absolutely decided we're fine with it. We'd prefer a functioning domestic economy to cheap luxuries.

[s1artibartfast]

or they just go out of business and we import our non mechanized crops to developing countries. Farming isn't a high margin business and if it were as simple are rising wages and prices, you wouldn't see the farms going out of business.

There is a reason European farmers are deeply subsidized.

[dv_dt]

We have the capital and tech to ensure out entire population has living wages, and yet and increasing swath of them do not