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Edited by Mrph1 on Nov 30th 2023 at 11:03:59 AM
Some farms tried getting their fruit picked without immigrant labor. They lost whole crops.
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"If we need to hire immigrant labour on a seasonal basis for crops, let's do this properly. Set up a government job exchange program like Japan, Korea, and China do for their English teachers. Pay for their fare over at the beginning of the harvest, and send them back when it's over. Not that fucking hard.
Share it so that people can get into this conversation, 'cause we're not the only ones who think like this.![]()
We did that in the post WW 2 era actually. It didn't continue for some reason.
edit: It was the Bracero program if you're curious.
edited 9th Nov '12 1:33:36 PM by Kostya
That. I'd gladly do these kinds of jobs if they actually bothered paying a wage that made up for it. But if I'm moving somewhere to do a high-risk job that doesn't even pay enough for basic subsistence (and thus effectively paying for the privilege of doing their job), much less medical costs for work-related injuries, I'm better off in literally every way remaining unemployed and bleeding money slowly instead of hemorrhaging it on rent and medical bills.
edited 9th Nov '12 1:43:48 PM by Pykrete
We're past peak oil anyways; more Americans will need to learn agricultural skills as the cost of transporting food rises. Urban agriculture projects in particular may become essential. Maybe a farm work exchange program targeting youth: the government pays for people between the ages of 16-29 to travel to rural areas and take part in the harvest. The farms pay as little as they can get away with and governments subsidize the rest of the paycheque up to minimum wage, as well as providing housing and such.
Ulterior motive: flooding rural areas with transient urban youth populations for months at a time, hopefully enabling a hearts and minds campaign to reduce racism and tribalism amongst areas with high concentrations of low-info voters.
Share it so that people can get into this conversation, 'cause we're not the only ones who think like this.Wait, that article says Obama "imagined" a planned to abolish the suburbs. What?
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That would be quite a cultural shift, as that sounds almost communistic. Also, you'd have to do away with the stigma of hard labor as something only uneducated rednecks and poor immigrants do. Still, that seems a better use of farm subsidies than all the ones spent on getting them to grow corn.
Also I don't see it allowing anyone under eighteen due to child labor laws and the like.
edited 9th Nov '12 1:54:49 PM by AceofSpades
@Kostya: The one about David Frum. He lists it among the things that Republicans claim that aren't try or something? Pretty easy to miss since that's not the main point of his editorial anyway.
Yeah, but that's true of any place that has large gatherings of young people. You know, like colleges and high schools.
edited 9th Nov '12 2:01:09 PM by AceofSpades
Uh... No it wouldn't. Anyway, you can't avoid having some trouble when gathering a bunch of youth together. Shit happens. Just set them up like camp cabins with someone serving as the adult in charge if shit goes down. *shrug*
Actually, I think they used to do something like this in the USSR? When it still was the USSR, anyway. It was part of the college age requirements?
Midnight: A voluntary program or college requirement is NOT the same thing as the Khmer Rouge.
edited 9th Nov '12 2:06:26 PM by AceofSpades
How the hell do you get from voluntary youth farm work program to Khmer Rouge?
Share it so that people can get into this conversation, 'cause we're not the only ones who think like this.

In addition, most Americans just refuse to do farm work, since it's backbreaking labor that's below minimum wage. It's pretty much immigrant labor or bust.
Wizard Needs Food Badly