The Quote Below—More Misinformation from the Media
“Farmers across the U.S. are joining a push for national immigration reform that they say could ease labor shortages and lower food prices as surging production costs continue to rock the agriculture industry.
“The farm operators say the Farm Workforce Modernization Act, already passed by the House and pending in the Senate, will provide them with a stable reliable workforce by creating a path to citizenship for undocumented agricultural workers and reforming the seasonal farmworker visa program, among other things.
“The current labor shortage, while not new, has been exacerbated by the pandemic and resulted in higher prices or empty store shelves for consumers. Food costs are now 10 percent higher than they were at this time last year, according to the U.S. Bureau of labor Statistics.
“At a time when labor shortages are contributing to inflation and high food prices, it’s clear that we need the Senate to pass our Farm Workforce Modernization Act to stabilize the agricultural workforce and protect America’s food supply,” Rep. Zoe Lofgren, the California Democrat who sponsored the House bill, said. . . .
“The Senate version of the legislation, sponsored by Sens. Mike Crapo, an Idaho Republican, and Michael Bennet, a Colorado Democrat, would modify and further open up the widely used H-2A temporary work visa program to give undocumented farmworkers year-round work-based residency with an eventual pathway to citizenship. . . .
“It is still uncertain when the legislation will be presented for a vote in the Senate, but as labor shortages contribute to challenges in food production, the bill has received wide support from hundreds of farmers and agriculture groups. . . .” — Farmers Push for Immigration Reform to Counter Labor Shortages and Rising Food Prices, Safia Ali, NBC News, 9/5/22. [Link]
Fact Check of Above Quote: This article accepts the narrative that immigration and more immigration are the only answers to maintain agriculture. It quotes sources that offer no alternatives. One unmentioned possibility is further mechanization of agriculture—to do jobs that many people would prefer not to do.
Recent years have seen great progress in robotic technology to harvest and process many different kinds of crops. This replacement of human labor has the potential to stabilize food production and keep prices low. The main barrier now is the initial cost of the new technologies. One remedy would be tax credits to producers who invest in new technologies.
Unfortunately, our elected representatives like the ones quoted above won’t consider such approaches. They want to encourage illegal alien farm workers to remain here by giving them amnesty. But after getting amnesty, if the past is any guide, they will move on to other kinds of work. Then we will hear that we will have to open our doors to a new wave of illegal aliens to work in the fields. With abundant cheap labor available, producers will never have incentive to invest in mechanization.
The legislation entitled the Farm Workforce Modernization Act is grossly misnamed. By discouraging mechanization with amnesty it prevents modernization of agriculture. With an unending stream of cheap foreign workers, various sectors of our agriculture will remain mired down in backward, inefficient stoop labor.