Farmers don't pay enough to get Americans to work for them, so....

Instead of paying more, let's get cheaper help...

The U.S. House of Representatives passed the Farm Workforce Modernization Act in March 2021, and Rick Naerebout, CEO of the Idaho Dairymen’s Association, said U.S. Rep. Mike Simpson, R-Idaho, who represents the 2nd Congressional District, was “instrumental” in the process.

The legislation has since been received in the U.S. Senate, and Naerebout said U.S. Sens. Mike Crapo and Jim Risch, both Idaho Republicans, have offered “strong support” for the effort as well. Rep. Russ Fulcher, R-Idaho, who represents the 1st Congressional District, voted against the measure in 2021.

“We send some of the most conservative Republicans to D.C., and they’re behind us on this issue,” Naerebout said. “We’re hopeful we can see something happen in the Senate to try and move forward with a bipartisan solution.”

In Idaho, Naerebout said the number of on-farm workers employed in the dairy industry has fallen from 8,000 in 2012 to fewer than 5,000 in 2022.

During the same time frame, he said, the inventory of dairy cows in the state grew by 100,000.

“So we’re seeing our industry continue to grow but that work force shrink,” he said. “Those numbers speak to the problems we hear our dairymen express.”

The situation is exacerbated by an increase in worker pay, which has risen 30% to 40% over the past five years to a starting wage of $15 to $18 per hour, Naerebout said.

Those wage increases have not been paired with higher market prices, he said, leading to “a lot of consolidation” among Idaho dairies.

There are only 400 dairy farms in the state today, Naerebout said, down from 560 in 2012.

“Immigration is our No. 1 topic we discuss with our D.C. delegation,” Naerebout said. “That’s our No. 1 concern.”

Milk is one of the most heavily screwed with agricultural commodities there is. Let the market actually work and the situation sorts itself out. Sure, you'd wind up paying fifteen bucks for a gallon of moo juice, but hey . . .

I don't get it. Sounds like they need less automation if they want more workers. Seems like jobs for the sake of jobs, rather than jobs that add value.

Related, this was an interesting read: https://fullstackeconomics.com/why-agatha-christie-could-afford-a-maid-and-a-nanny-but-not-a-car/

Farmers are among the most "conservative" demographic groups in the country, but the industry is as heavily subsidized as any of them. A former student of mine had connections to some...colorful...connections among certain Idaho groups. He told me about a meeting where a group of "conservative, law and order" business owners asked him to put them in touch with "coyotes" who could bring in (cheap) illegal aliens. He came away from the meeting somewhat, shall we say, disillusioned.

I bet they pay as much to lobbyists as it would cost to just pay their fucking workers.

Not a bad article, although I think it’s not clear that a string quartet is no more productive now than 100 years ago. They could be if they chose to, but they don’t. There’s been a deliberate(?) repositioning of classical music performance as a luxury good by creating a preference that demands it be experienced live in a concert hall. Whereas undoubtedly modern pop stars are more productive now than musicians of 100 years ago. Despite playing the same instrument, Yo-Yo Ma is far more productive than the first cellist of the London Philharmonic. You can buy a sound system custom tailored to you living room that will make the music sound better than most concert halls for the cost of 2 concert tickets. But even when individual philharmonics sell CDs or videos of their performances, it’s as an afterthought, and no marketing out into it. People debate Beyoncé and Taylor Swift’s relative merits, but when was the last time anyone ginned up controversy over whether LA or NY had the better symphony, and brought the CDs to prove it?

Democrats are weak on border patrol and illegal immigration, so…

Perhaps someone should have built a wall and had Mexico pay for it.

If we made legal immigration easier, maybe need to patrol the borders less?

Sure, but we still need to crack down on businesses that hire illegal immigrants.

Perhaps you should report this lawbreaker then?

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2019/08/trump-organization-undocumented-workers

I don't know about "easier" but the immigration system certainly needs to be neatened up and made a whole lot more rational. The process should be very straighforward and not the incoherent mess it currently is.

The market is fantastic at sorting this stuff out. Let it.

I don't care if wages for farm workers go up or down. I don't care if the industry consolidates or not.

I care that milk is plentiful and cheap. Consumers want it for their breakfast cereal and whatnot, and it's the role of the entrepreneur to organize capital to deliver it profitably and efficiently.

(I do care that the cheapness may result from subsidized overproduction and I'd much prefer that such subsidies end.)

The way immigration and citizenship worked when my ancestors came here -- or rather, the way they worked if you were from northern Europe -- was:

1) Show up at a port.

2) Get examined by a doctor to show that you don't have syphillis.

3) Live here for a couple of years (during which time there were no rules preventing you from working legally).

4) Sign a form attesting that you were giving up any allegiance to the King of Norway and Sweden, or whoever.

Going back to that system, only making it apply to everyone instead of just northern Europeans, would be just fine with me.

Not necessarily. We deregulated and ended government subsidies for a lot of farming decades ago and the buying power of the major supermarket chains drove milk down to unsustainably low prices.

But...But....The market is perfect...it's never wrong....it can solve any problem....

Government subsidies is crony capitalism, not the free market.

Boeing would like a word.

So did all the dairies go out of business, or what? What happened once the price of milk was driven down to "unsustainably low prices"? Or rather, what do you mean when you say that the prices were "unsustainably" low?

Let’s follow this to it’s logical conclusion ( which, by the way, has come to pass ).

Farmers can no longer make a profit and are forced to sell their farm (usually at a ridiculously low price because it’s no longer profitable)
Corporate farmers buy the family farm at a ridiculously low price because that business is not generating a profit.
Consumers continue to get their milk at a price which most middle class families can afford.

Meanwhile, behind the scenes …

Farming families cannot afford a reliable car to drive to town or, better yet, a city, to get to and from a job, so they lose their job and are forced onto welfare.
Their children cannot afford cars or to go to college.
Generational families on welfare make for great conservative talk show hosts to bitch about.
Entire towns fall into economic collapse as town businesses no longer have customers.
Leaving even more families on welfare.
Giving conservative talk show hosts even more to bitch about.

Do you see where I’m going? What do you propose (within reason) to combat the negative affects?

I dispute that all of that is the necessary conclusion, but for the sake of argument, I'll say: sure.

No one is born into this world with a birthright to be a milk farmer. If you can't make a living at it given the market, then you need to go do something else.

To use a cliche: when people stopped riding horses for transportation, should we have intervened to make sure that blacksmiths weren't put out of work?

If you can't afford to make a suitable living--however you define that--in a particular occupation, then you need to find another occupation.

I suppose if someone were making their living in a government subsidized industry, I could probably be persuaded to support some short-term public benefit to assist them in their transition to another occupation when those subsidies are terminated.

But I won't support government intervention to keep some inefficient industry going simply because it's going to involve hardship when that intervention ends.

So, you are completely incapable of logic. Got it. Knew it, but now you’ve exposed yourself to everyone else on the board.

Is what I wrote incorrect? Are there people who have a birthright to be milk farmers?

The world changes. An economic situation that was possible a generation or two ago may not be today.

If self-driving vehicles become commonplace--and they will--are you going to prop up chauffeurs and Uber drivers because, gosh, they might starve if their jobs go away?

But I guess you'll keep the blacksmith shops open.

What you typed completely bypasses how to get from here to there. You appear to believe in unicorns and skittle rainbows. Don’t ever make fun of a liberal again. You are absurd.

Remind me again of your stance on minimum wage laws.

How about government intervention so that we can all have access to affordable food that doesn't depend solely on the whims of MegaAgriConglomCorp Inc.?

Shouldn't be one.

And why is that? And how does it differ from laws about protecting the environment?

You don't need government intervention for that. But you do need to pay for it.

MegaAgriConglomCorp is *really* good at producing lots of food cheaply and efficiently. If you want locally grown, organically farmed, hand-picked vegetables, you go to Sally's Garden Market, not Wal-Mart. You'll get what you want, but don't complain that Sally's squash is more expensive than Wal-Mart's.

Huh? Huge difference.

The environment doesn't have an owner, so we're left with the state to regulate it.

But labor is not a common good. It's owned by the person offering it. The price paid for it should reflect its market value.