Summary
California farmers, many of whom supported Trump, face a potential crisis as his immigration policies threaten mass deportations of undocumented workers, who make up at least half of the state’s 162,000 farm labor force.
Deportations could devastate agriculture, leading to labor shortages, unharvested crops, and rising food prices.
Farmers hope for solutions such as workforce legalization or expanded H-2A guest worker programs, though these have been criticized for exploitation risks.
Historical parallels to programs like “Operation Wetback” and the bracero system highlight possible labor and human rights challenges ahead.
Woah there. That’s a pretty damned broad brush you are painting with. In fact it’s a pretty damned ignorant comment.
Do you think EVERY farmer in California is a Republican and/or Trump supporter?
Edit: Before you down vote (but of course feel free), kindly consider this: 89% of all farms in the US are small-scale family farms with less than $350k revenue (note that profit margins in farming hover around 10%). A growing number of new farms are organic/sustainable/agroecological. These are not Trump-supporting people, ffs. Please ask yourself what purpose it serves you to over-generalize and angrily shake your fist at ALL farmers as if somehow all farmers are conservative. All you are doing is furthering the industrial food systems narrative of farmer=bad. Think about it.
As someone who comes from a rural area and whos ancestors were made up of farm owners, farmhands, and engineers who worked with both the two previous most, modern farmers especially those fucking profligates in the central valley are dumb as shit and ignorant as all hell. They are highly traditional in the worst ways, my ancestors figured out drip farming for orchards over a hundred years ago yet its championed by those mouth breathers as some great breakthrough.
Hate to break it to you but most of our ancestors were farm owners or farmhands.
“modern farmers especially those fucking profligates in the central valley are dumb as shit and ignorant as all hell.”
Why do you have such hate for farmers? Is it that you don’t like food? You feel you have a better way of eating?
I have nothing against the competent ones, but most arent. As I noted they treat drip feed watering as some massive breakthrough when my own ancestors figured it out a hundred years ago.
Also their intelligence states nothing on their ability to produce food, 90 percent of the time they arent building the actual hardware or equipment. The ones reliant on illegal labor are a fine example of folks who could be removed and nothing would be lost. The ones who do their actual fucking job and arent reliant on others running things I have nothing against as a group.
No offense, but unless you are an experienced and successful commercial farmer, you are simply not qualified to make that assessment. And it really shows. Oh don’t worry, I hear this sort of horse shit all the time from people with exactly zero farming experience.
Do you know anything about irrigation at all? I suspect not. There are several issues here, but mainly it boils down to basic cost-benefit. I have a friend who’s family has senior water rights for their farm in the central valley. Rest assured, they are perfectly well aware of drip irrigation and have been for probably longer than you’ve been alive. But they flood irrigate, and why? It’s the most cost effective method for them in their situation. You can complain all you want about whether that’s the “best” method for other reasons, but’s the most sensible approach for their farm.
It’s notable that this is the only example you can give.
This sentence is completely nonsensical. Are you saying that you are judging they are not competent because ability to produce food aside, they aren’t spending their time programing embedded C**? That they don’t build equipment?
I really don’t even know what you mean, but some basic facts are completely untrue.
Completely FALSE. Early on in my farming life I worked on a farm that made use of undocumented workers. These same workers came back to this farm year after year where they had a welcome home and were paid well. The owner of the farm relied on their labor because he could not find their skills anywhere else, and I believe it - I worked side by side with them and they were amazing. Nobody local could compete even if they wanted to do that work. I earned less than half of their wage and totally respected that.
You really have no idea what you are talking about.
** In the winter I build various Arduino devices for controlling irrigation, greenhouse temperature controls, etc. I’m hardly unique in that.
This is a difference in philosophy it seems, let me elaborate better.
All functions of a farm should be done by a farmer on the day to day, harvedt season not withstanding. Be it mechanical repairs, land improvements, or botanical work.
Maintenance of resources, I dont care if its more cash efficient since thats irrelevant. Proper maintenance of raw resources of things like water and soil will pay in dividends a hundred years from that point. I will stab folks who flood water.
Construction of equipment, the over reliance of shitty companies like john deer is pathetic. I get it to a degree but the fact of the matter is that farmers should be trying to build up the required infrastructure to circumvent their BS monopoly copyright be damned.
Use of illegal labor has no excuse, its exploitation clean and simple. I dont care if they have skillsets you need, lobby for an improvement to the visa system. If ya need something done in a specific way increase pay, work quality, and give them the proper time for training. If not I dont care if your fields blight.
Waste of resources, shit shouldnt be left to rot. If ya cant harvest or its dollar inefficient then you shouldnt have planted. If its a grove then cut it down.
And then finally, I have worked on a farm. My great aunts to be precise the day to day was just us. I was payed 20 an hour and I did everything from repairing fences to jury rigging a 90 year old tractor back to life just to use it to tow the sowing machine. I am of the opinion that to run a farm ya need to be as independent as possible and as resource efficient as possible, also cash doesnt count as a raw resource.
Really? I couldn’t tell. What I can tell is that you’ve never owned and run one.
In theory I don’t disagree. In practice, you need to hire people. That’s just the basic economic reality when margins sit at 10%.
Are you kidding? How long do you think any given farm will survive if they only invest in things that pay dividends 100 years form now? It’s a balance.
You don’t even know that sometimes it’s more environmentally friendly, do you? That’s how ignorant you are.
And this is the farmer’s problem how? And it’s Deere.
Even when that labor is paid fairly? Even if not using it puts you out of business completely? Even if you ARE lobbying but getting nowwhere?
Who says it is?
I mean basically it’s super easy for someone such as yourself who has never had their livelihood and everything they’ve worked for for many years on the line to have very strong opinions and spout off these simplicities. Frankly I find your attitude and much of what you write laughable.
I will admit I am being a tad bit inflexible but I am doing it to largely illustrate my point. Also the I have had a fucking headache since six in the morning its six till three now. Anyways my point on that is largely philosophical the platonic ideals of farming if ya will, there will always be exceptions to the rule I just leave those exceptions to the environmental scientists to decide. A fine example is the rice farms in the central valley which double function as an important rest area for certain migratory birds.
Anyways I am going to try to get back onto the whole farmers and to a degree rural folks as a whole are ignorant, hopefully without the regional hatred of an Inland Imperial showing.
Rural areas have been propagandized to a severe level for centuries resulting in them taking often times self destructive tendencies, a prime example of this is a town up towards NorCal I believe who wanted to build lots of single family homes instead of high density apartments and condos under the false assumption that building high density would inevitably destroy them faster than building low density. Ive come across plenty who assume they know the wisdom of the world yet haven’t left their county since the fucken 90s, seriously if I have to hear about how LA and Seattle were burnt down I am going to drag someone behind my fucken car.
Rural regions have been under the under influence of priests, talk radio, and fox news for decades and it has rotted them. My vitriol is largely that of someone lashing out against seeing people who closely resemble his kin being abused.
Also I am quite literally repeating the ideals of my 2x great grandfather when it comes to irrigation, this dates back to the water war. The problem is that everytime the states attempts to reform water rights and water irregation the central valley throws the biggest bitch fit.
So you are going to condemn farmers as a whole as incompetent morons because they are not perfectly in line with your ideal despite your lack of knowledge and experience or any real qualification beyond being slightly farming adjacent a handful of times. And frankly I think you made that up given that you couldn’t even use the right terminology. I thought it was because English is not your native language. Ha.
Here’s my unsolicited suggestion for you: read more. Your writing sucks, which is not a good thing for someone who likes to blather on.
No, just all of the ones that I’ve met.
All what, 2?
Even if they’re not they’re using too much water
Do you like to eat?
Maybe farm somewhere that rains?
That’s an incredibly stupid thing to say on so many levels.
The ignorant ones probably are
Of course. And there are many. But there are also many farmers in California - I am one - who would never in a million years vote for Trump or anyone like him.
It seems likely to me.
Why? How many have you personally met and had a conversation with? Are you aware that there are thousands of small organic farms in CA that are run by smart, dedicated and progressive people?
Not many. But we’re not really talking about hobby farms.
You are misinformed and I strongly suspect do not know the technical definition of “hobby farm” but are using that as a term of derision to dismiss small farms so you can maintain your fictional notion that farmers are bad people. Have you thought much about where that prejudice comes from?
The vast majority of farms in California are under 300 acres. In the US 89% of all farms are classified as “small family farms” by the USDA, meaning they have less than $350k of gross income (GFCI, technically). Now you’ll see terms like “production value” mixed in with such reporting. Know that there’s an inherent problem with that - it’s geared only toward commodities, not speciality crops and particularly not those sold retail. That’s an important distinction.
Further, there has been a wave of new organic and sustainable farms popping up in California over the last 10-15 years. Do you think Trump supporters are starting small-scale organic/agroecological/regenerative farms?
I am by no means saying that large-scale industrial farms aren’t dominated by right-leaning people. But to generalize and outright dismiss farmers as a whole displays not only ignorance but prejudice that, critically, is tremendously damaging to small-scale organic/agroecological/regenerative farms as a whole.
89% by number of farms or by acreage? And do you have to sell your products to be called a farm, or does a small sustenance farm or backyard vegetable garden count as a farm?
And come one, dude. I’m happy you and some of your buddies aren’t Trumpers, but I spend a lot of time in Central CA and didn’t see any Harris signs anywhere. It’s Trump-land outside of Santa Barbara and SLO. Driving up 5 or 99 between LA and SF it’s all “Barbara Boxer created this drought” signs.
You couldn’t be bothered to look it up, eh? These are commercial farms - it’s the number.
And do you know what? The second someone asks about acreage in this context I have them pegged as someone who does not understand a damned thing about farming. Why? Because you the median net return for an acre of conventionally-grown corn is less than $130. The median net return for organic speciality crops can easily be $25-30k per acre or more. And yes, you can use that as a proxy for actual people fed.
Acreage means nothing in terms of feeding people. So tl;dr, do some research on what the USDA means by small family farm and learn about how those small family farms are feeding you. Why the fuck would you dismiss them like that?
Go on, go to a farmer’s market and ask any farmer to estimate how many people they feed relative to the size of their farm.
LOL. You know why? Because we’re not stupid and don’t want our tires slashed. If you are a liberal in a red county you keep that to yourself.