- Farmhands deported, can’t find replacements
- $200k labor grant suspended indefinitely
- Lost subsidies, making less money on product
- Tariffs jacked up equipment prices and repairs
- Depends on Medicaid, no insurance if it’s cut
Oh boy, way to seriously fuck yourself from every conceivable angle, smart guys. Sumo wrestler lookin leopards after this one.
Add that any products grown for trade are sitting unwanted in fields, or for aid rotting in warehouses because the government canceled the contracts for them. Food is often held in special warehouses where the oxygen is pumped out, but there aren’t enough of those to hold all the excess that was expected to be sent elsewhere
It’s a colossal mess, with an incredible amount of waste
That’s just good old fashioned republican efficiency. These boys better get their bootstraps and figure out which conglomerate they’re gonna sell the farm to.
Big corpos probably lining up to strike a bargain rn
It’s a colossal mess, with an incredible amount of waste
Yes. Yes, he is.
At least during Covid the farms were transporting food to churches/communities at lower prices. They literally have no one now to pick up the produce. Waiting on farms to start pick your own systems like blueberry farms.
This won’t work for orchards and tree based produce. One idiot falling off a cherry picker will ruin a small farmer
One more: China puts tariffs on agricultural products specifically, because they know what they’re doing.
Correction: every country has agricultural tarrifs to protect local farmers, except in extreme scenarios where populations are being starved or cannot produce food by themselves.
China put tariffs on us products from states that voted for trump, specially on soy beans IIRC.
This is just a gift for big farm.
I’m surprised that they haven’t considered using prison labour yet.
It is also ironic that people in the US criticize alleged slavery in other countries but ignore their agricultural economy
I’m pretty sure parts the US are actively using prison labor already. It varies by state, but I remember reading about one state where they were basically renting out prisoners to companies. I think they used the term “hiring”, but the money the company paid didn’t go to the inmate… The prison system has been one of the larger atrocities in the US for a while now.
It’s almost as if immigrants are a big source of exploitable labor that keeps the wheels of capitalism turning. Who would’ve thought?
Wow. So much ignorant hate here, as always in the enlightened misinformation age.
Most farms aren’t corporations. In America for example more than 80% of farmers are smalltime. They don’t dictate their profits or the wages they can afford to pay, or influence the prices of their crops or all the crap they have to buy to do farming. A typical American farmer makes $40-50k a year, and every year they risk going into the red or bankruptcy because of fluctuating prices. I really don’t know why anybody in their right mind would keep farming. Family tradition or whatever - apparently it’s “in their blood”.
As always, a lot of people here have jumped right onto the binary world tailgate, using their vast 3-second attention spans to make a value judgement about who wears the black and white hats in the situation and who’s evil, then they thumb-type a few decisive words of irrefutable justice wisdom - in this case about evil farmers treating people like slaves.
It’s great that Lemmy is non-corporate and part of the fediverse, but after 7 or 8 months here I’m more and more developing the opinion that it’s just another kneejerk ignorance shithole on the social media superhighwqy. Scroll on, brave justice warriors, scroll on! And enjoy your lunch.
Well this is good
You can’t expect a good end for the net negative incentives all the collectivist immigrant policies created during this time. Here is the backlash.
Ironic for people that keep saying to have empathy for others, and yet everything they do keeps increasing human suffering.
Great idea guys
Yeah let’s allow everyone to enter the country. Where will they work, how will they provide for themselves? What do you say? Not our problem now!
Ah but y’all knew the incentive was already there. People desperate for work and people in need of cheap labor go hand in hand
An industry can’t be based on cheap exploited labor just like that
Now the guys who you hate have to undo what you did
Now they need to remove the incentive on why people come to the US in the first place and the ones related to companies not having actual consequences to hiring illegal inmigrants
Shit will get expensive? Sure, but it will be worth it right?
People will need to work more? Of course, every poor citizen of the us usually has to work their ass of. But now much more
The cheap food and goods festival over? Well, about time
Maybe these morons should stop voting to remove their employees. Too smart for these MAGAts.
No no no, they’ll vote for the GOP again, but hope they’ll force inmates or homeless people to work the fields.
I’m certain that when they say MAGA, they mean bring back slavery.
But instead of shipping in the slaves, using the existing stock
I hope the inmates and/or indigent perform plenty of malicious compliance if this happens.
they tried with inmates already, they arnt going to do it, they will do the bare minimum or nothing at all, since they have very little to gain from it.
Don’t you guys have forced prison labour? That ought to do the trick. You can even employ Moore people that way because you need guards and fences, gps tracking on the volunteered workers and all that.
If the prisoners don’t want to work, they won’t. And if prison guards start whipping inmates there will be riots.
If the prisoners don’t want to work, they won’t. And if prison guards start whipping inmates there will be riots.
You mean slavery?
Yes, but with a nicer name.
Its truly incredible.
Their response will just be to fold, to literally sell the farm, and also at the same time never even be cognizant of the fact that they got exactly what they voted for, that Trump repeatedly said he was going to do exactly this, that lefties screamed about Project 2025 and the resounding response was basically ‘pff, he’s just bluffing,’ and then making up a fan fiction version of what Dear Leader will actually do.
They’re just gonna revert back to the ‘no one wants to work’ mantra untill we just literally put our incarcerated prisoners to work in the fields, going full circle all the way back to slavery.
These idiots didn’t even realize how dependant they were on so many massive subsidy programs untill they poofed out of existence, again, 100% in line with Trump’s platform.
Has any nation in history fucking autolobotomized as hard and as fast as we have?
Literally the world’s sole super power 20/30 years ago, and in a single generation we have destroyed ourselves in almost every way possible, short of just nuking ourselves.
Has any nation in history fucking autolobotomized as hard and as fast as we have?
Well, the Khmer Rouge killed everybody who wore glasses because they were “intellectuals,” China killed millions trying to force city kids to become farmers during the Cultural Revolution, and I’m pretty sure other autocratic totalitarian governments have fucked themselves in similar ways. Usually when societies become illiberal, people with brains are the first to be put up against the proverbial wall.
Just to add a point - if the farmers do end up folding and selling off, who’s going to buy the land? My money would be on large corpos.
Yes, it would 100% be large corpos that more or less run and own many farms that same way large landlords run 10s or 100s or 1000s of apartments / rental homes.
Sorry, I had thought this was so obvious it didn’t need to be directly stated, but yeah, it’s not a bad idea to be more explicit and more clear.
Bill Gates owns 270,000 acres of farmland already.
they tried it with prisoners already, they arnt doing it because they are already in jail, why work when you have all the ameneties provided for you, and it barely affects your sentence.
Much like how it is very easy to pass laws and ordinances that fuck over the homeless, it is also easy to pass laws and ordinances that fuck over prisoners.
The US Constitutional + Ammendments explicitly allows slavery as punishment for a crime you’ve been convicted of.
The Supreme Court has now repeatedly just thrown all prior existing legal case precedent out the window and just made such nakedly hypocritical rulings that its fair to say they are a completely biased and arbitrary institution.
The rule of law in the US is dead, is a farsical joke.
Some state will just pass a law that says uh hey, if you’re a prisoner in a facility in our state, and the state has some kind of extraordinary need, we can force you into involuntary labor.
Then other states will copy this once it passes one state’s court, then in 6 months-ish it’ll get to the Supreme Court who will say yep, checks out, carry on, and then every other red state and half the blue states will do it as well.
I am not 100% sure this will happen, but it is very, very plausible. 95% sure something like this will happen within 5 to 10 years, possibly less.
Also… its illegal to be homeless now, and the economy is crashing. Get foreclosed on, can’t pay rent, end up in the streets, living in your car?
Yep, why not crack down on that like ICE is cracking down on migrants, now you’re convicted of being homeless, the punishment is a few years of forced labor.
A few years? Optimistic, are we?
Dude what? Our Constitution literally allows for us to continue slavery as a punishment. Why the fuck would you ever think they had a choice?
I wouldn’t mind being a crop worker…provided I get at least minimum wage, breaks, healthcare, and reasonable quotas that ensure my wellbeing.
…crickets…
I’ve done a lot of seasonal field scale farm work, mostly in Europe - it can be extremely hard work. Couldn’t do it now, you have to be pretty fit.
Which probably means that it would have to pay significantly above minimum wage. But, farmers were getting that labour for below minimum wage because they had the luck to be able to use workers who had no other options.
Federal minimum wage is $7.25/hour.
Good luck with that.
I would assume they were joking. Why you would do anything for minimum wage is beyond me
Wasn’t joking. Still, I would much prefer a living wage, like what we see from old-timey videos, where a single person can support a household and feel happy about their fiscals.
If only people would be willing to pay for that at the market…
Something like 80% of the prices you pay at a grocery store go to middle men. Farmer is only about 11%, IIRC.
Might be even less depending on your produce, also keep in mind that farmers don’t have the same costs every year nor the same yields. A bad year can totally finish them in a bad economy.
I swear I said “market”…
If only the parasitic middlemen were willing to reduce their ridiculous profit margins…
Nowadays you can circumvent middlemen in a lot of cases (if you live in the center of a big metropolis probably not, but the you -need the middlemen). Farmers market, bulk orders or weekly markets are all decent options.
Good point
Here’s one of San Francisco’s :) just wonderful when the sun is shining
That’s why governments subsidize agriculture, to keep the price down.
So Walmart strategy, the government should subsidize my company so I can pocket the profit!
Nobody is going to work for slave wages and slavery conditions. Raise wages! Improve working conditions! That’s the point of the whole Trump immigration policies you dumbass!
The prices for grocery shopping are much higher in the US than in Germany (30% to 100% higher for unprocessed, healthy food). Yes, we also have immigration workers, but their status is legal and they get the official minimum wage.
It’s not that the US can’t afford to lower prices without illegals, they just want to maximise profit.
https://livingcost.org/cost/germany/united-states (You need to scroll down to the grocery part)
not to mention, the fuckery around shrinkflation/cheapflation. many other products like oral care is heavily shrinkflationed.
To be fair, in Germany a lot of food is imported from other countries that have different labor protections, so Spanish tomatoes could have different conditions. Of course Aldi and Lidl have popularized super efficient supply chains that help keeping prices low (and AFAIK they pay reasonable salaries).
You might want to let Trump know that these are his objectives. I don’t think he’s aware that he’s supposed to strengthen OSHA and fight for higher wages.
he already gave the response to people complaining" you voted for what i cammpaigned on, deal with it"-paraphased trump exact words.
even if they did all that, its pretty back breaking work, you will your back or joints will be destroyed in the 30s, thats why also people dont stay in the trades that long either. disc disease from wear, is pretty hard to treat.
Which means the pay has to rise even more.
My guess is that this is a Peter Thiel move and robot companies are almost ready to deploy their farm helpers.
It is indeed baffling that immigrants worked all this time for slave wages under slavery conditions. USA is full of people taking advantage of others. It is not just Trump, it is the 50% of the population that is anti-social psychopathic sociopath.
For real. In America being a psychopath is rewarded with money. And what’s worse is that there is something very dark and heartless happening that seems to have a hold of not just the government but the people as well. Like it’s now becoming known at least slightly, that America is not the image it branded itself as and that the people here are very much being manipulated socially and society is being orchestrated to be something that is not for humanity but instead for an ideology that feels like the essence of evil.
We should be realizing our nation isn’t for humanity. It’s all strictly business, and “the game” of conquering life and existence. And anything that gets in the way is the enemy.
As citizens here we aren’t special. They can do the same things they do to other countries to us. We can become the middle east warzone. The only reason they don’t do it inside the nation bluntly is because then it would show their true colors. So what they do is manipulate and divide the citizens over simple things and watch the citizens destroy themselves. The same geopolitical methods they use to overthrow countries they use here.
In America being a psychopath is rewarded with money.
That’s true anywhere on the planet.
it is not anywhere near baffling. it is an example of exactly how disgusting and terrible capitalism is. these times should be moving people radically left.
Meh, I mean sure capitalism sucks, but these people would try to exploit others for personal gain under any system.
And they won’t be able to if they never had the power (money in capitalism) to do so to begin with.
“Try” is the key word here. It only matters if anyone succeeds.
Capitalism
I don’t think a lot of them realized just how bad it was, maybe not even a passing thought. I’m willing to give a pass to anyone who isn’t a farmer or has experience farming.
The point is racism and cruelty.
The Republicans don’t give a fuck about workers wages.
they prefer slaves.
The fuck are you talking about? It’s the Democrats saying we need a slave class, that we can’t deport them, not the Republicans.
Psst: the deranged focus on deporting every single undocumented immigrant actually makes it easier for employers to exploit undocumented immigrants. You can’t threaten to deport someone for organizing labor if the government is only deporting criminals.
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The vast majority of the immigrants being deported are being forced to leave against their will. Why do you think they should have no say in the matter? Forced deportation is violent and cruel, and results in the separation of families.
If either party actually cared about the people, or budgets, or morality, instead of spending tens of thousands of dollars to remove each person, they would just check them in, have them sign a piece of paper, and grant them legal status.
To what Democratic policy or policies are you referring?
The one against deporting illegal immigrants?
Okay, but like specifically what law, proposed or enacted?
25 downvotes, no upvotes?
Downvotes don’t change the past and the fact that Democrats enabled slavery.
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_strategy
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1932_United_States_presidential_election
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_realignment
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dixiecrat
Leaving this here instead of removing this dumbfuck comment for disinformation based on an intellectually dishonest half-truth.
Sorry but I didn’t mean it in that historic perspective and neither did OP.
It doesn’t matter what people say, it’s important what happens. By keeping illegal immigrants in their exploitive conditions, and by e.g. not prosecuting those who employ illegal immigrants, the Democrats created the current situation, together with the Republicans. The Democrats are complicit.
Nevertheless, those are interesting links.
Ah, sorry, that makes sense. If you didn’t know, there’s a common Republican talking point that – because the Democrats were the racist slavers in the 1800s and the Repuublicans the progressive abolitionists – the modern-day Democrats are the real racists because like, like, uh, look at what they did 160 years ago! Completely ignoring, of course, the context I linked to above.
I’m used to it. Lemmy has problems with the reality of the democrat party.
This is what people don’t understand.
Yes, the work is hard, but good old Americans will do the work if they are paid.
No pay, no work.
The point is to get votes and financial support from racists and xenophobes. The policies are just tools for it.
I thought farmers were their base though.
the rich white farm owners, yes. the owners dont do any of the farm work.
You got three sentences correct.
get ready for 300-400% inflation on food
It’s not inflation if that is actually how much it always should have cost. Our food is too cheap and full of shit.
That would be unpleasant, yes, and would require further efforts to minimize the consequences for those with low incomes (for instance, expansion of food subsidies, which yes would require even more taxation of those with wealth), however, if food prices aren’t as high as that now because of near slavery conditions, then there’s probably no ethical way to avoid it.
EXPANSION of food subsidies? They just gutted USDA programs providing food to food shelves all over the country. My local food bank recently switched to every two weeks instead of every week. It’s already bad and only getting worse
You may misunderstand, I’m not making any prediction that this administration or any like what we’ve had in a long time, if ever, would do such a thing. What I’m saying is that if some government was installed that actually cared, it’s not an impossibly to improve agricultural labor conditions without driving the working class broke from food cost increases.
Oh yeah, that’s definitely true. But our food system isn’t ass backwards on accident, you know?
That’s the point of the whole Trump immigration policies you dumbass!
Is it? Why would you think that.
Which raises prices, while wages won’t be
So … Pay the Americans more. That is why they are leaving, my farming friends. It really is that simple.
Yup. I worked a terribly hazardous job that will work you to death at asphalt plants for a couple of years and absolutely only did it for six figure pay in California. Worst people I have ever worked around. Most were dumber than the rocks in aggregate but they always show up, are great at driving in circles, and gossiping far worse than a group of little girls.
You mean that the job isn’t worth what you pay to do. They always pretend it isn’t the money. But of course its the money. If I’m going to work my ass off I expect better pay. Those immigrants were working their ass off for minimum wage and the farmers knew they were exploiting them.
Literally everything in America is about how much money you have, but God forbid you ask an employer how much they’re going to pay you. Because at your job what really matters is FAMILY. It’s like, give me a fucking break.
Does Vin Diesel own a farm?
Any pretty much any physical job comes with copious risks to your body and health, yet these types of employers typically don’t pay for employee health plans nor do they pay enough for employees to comfortably afford their own. Why would anybody want to risk severing a finger, breaking a leg, getting bitten by a dangerous snake, a nail to the hand, etc if they don’t have to, especially knowing they can’t afford the treatment and it could lead to lifelong pain and disability?
You think they’re making minimum wage?
There’s literally a sub minimum wage in a lot of U.S states. 2.13$ an hour iirc?
Probably not all of them. The ones I’ve had experience with were.
They mean that the workers are probably making less than Minimum Wage. There are exceptions to minimum wage for agricultural work. Minimum wage would have been an improvement.
Nothing about my statement was an argument requiring input from tom clancy.
I think those exceptions are made (, in principle,) to to let farm workers get paid per unit. They pack a crate, they get $3. They can probably pack 10 crates an hour if they work their asses off.
But I’m sure it is exploited egregiously.
ICE facilities are currently overflowing. ICE prisoners will simply be leased out as farm labor.
Jesus fucking Christ that’s dark but entirely possible.
The US has always operated off of slave labor. We currently, among other things, use slave labor to fight forest fires.
I read somewhere the US both has a really high incarnation ratio (as in amounts of prisoners per x citizens) and a high percentage of externally employed prisoners. Interestingly those stats where compared to Russia (Siberian labour camps) and China (Uyghurs in forced labour).
i think its 1.2+million in for profit system, and you wonder why courts are often desperate to hand out convinctions often, despite the lack of evidence in many cases against disadvantaged people. it also helps breed future cannon fodder for the military too(through the children of the incarcerated), basically generational slavery.
Yes, we have one of the highest prisoner per-capita in the world
Nah it’s a reality
Bringing back that slave labor
It’s literally their plan
These red voting MAGA fucks were receiving grants to hire labor and they claim socialism is bad. I have zero sympathy for their problems and this is another classic FAFO situation.
Yes but if the farm work doesn’t get done you are looking at the next thing which will be the great American famine, which I expect somewhere this summer. If the US food production falters and importing food is made very expensive though tarriffs, Americans are not going to have enough food.
It’s going to be like post revolutionary China in so many ways.
AND ITS ALL BIDEN’S FAULT!
/S, so you don’t think I’m one of those MAGA Nazis who actually, truly believe that.
Its actually Obama’s fault, still. I really don’t get how, but he (Trump) said he(Obama)'d nuke Iran. The deep state strikes again now is the time for peace etc all caps
/s :(
they claim socialism is bad
They mean compassion for the out-groups.
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This is how Trump will defend recreating slavery adjacent to the prison system slavery.
He will claim there is no choice.
will?
it already happened.
he said he’ll exempt some industries from ice raids. those who work well be even more desperate, and the bosses will be able to call ICE to kidnap whichever worker isn’t performing as desired. under those conditions it might as well be slavery without the actual ownership.
What a hellish nightmare of a country.
remember reading an national geographic article about modern slavery.
it focused in Dubai construction, Israel sex trade (kidnappings), and US farms.
it was really depressing.
found the article but it’s not online, “21st-Century Slaves” September 2003 Andrew Cockburn.
https://www.npr.org/2003/08/27/1408233/slavery-in-the-21st-century
And everyone enjoys the spoils of that country. In the form of medicines and media. Subsidized by the actual Americans.
Wow, such stupid.
do you think pharma uses slaves for research?
and do you think MARVEL movies is a justification for slaves?
You’re so pathetic.
Nah he all ready changed his mind on that. The dude has dementia.
is it dementia? or was he always that stupid
Combination of the two
Damn freeloading immigrants, staying at home and stealing all our jobs
Shrondinger’s immigrant.png
They promised JJ 100,000 a year to hire illegals and whatever other farm subsidies AND his whole family is on Medicaid. Is he literally that bad at living off farming, rather than welfare, or is he also committing fraud?
Why is a welfare queen (by the original definition) voting Republican
Around the 1990’s it became okay to be greedy in America, and okay to complain about what you don’t have. Empathy in the US has fallen off considerably over the years.
As to how they’re on medicaid, farms almost always miraculously have a loss of a few hundred dollars each year, so farmers tend to qualify. When you’re used to quietly having healthcare paid for by the government, you can vote for the hate party until that changes. Every republican knows they’re not the problem, much as no raindrop blames itself for a flood.
The phrase “The Surely Exception” applies here as it does to abortion, they were sure any cuts would not affect them. One benefit of the buffoonery of trump is they are not smart enough to protect their voters.
