"Kurt Ullman" wrote in message
...
In article ,

Mechanized: No. Some crops cannot be harvested by machines. If they
could,
John Deere would already have machines to do it, and farmers would be
delighted to own them.

Not if there are methods to do so that are cheaper/more available.
There is no incentive to look precisely because the other way is
available. Illegal immigration that is studiously ignored by government
essentially is a subsidy to farmers.
It is Econ 101.

Possible for some crops, but the fact remains that there *are* some which
are simply too delicate to be managed with machinery.



As far as costs rising, you've got that right. I suspect it would be
disastrous, especially for people who already have a hard time affording
decent food. How about $5.00 a pound for lettuce, instead of the usual
$1.00
to $3.00? We're already in for a big surprise in the grocery business if
oil
keeps rising in price. Three years ago, freight rates were in the range
of
$1.25 to $1.50 per mile. Now, they're $1.75 to $2.75, depending on
direction
of travel and the availability of backhauls.



How about "Dogs and cats. Living together!" So it is okay if
the illegal immigrants work at slave labor in areas that you suggested
in your last post are chemically dangerous for artificially low wages so
you can save a couple cents on lettuce.

I didn't say it was OK - I said it's a fact of life at the moment. If
Mexicans didn't think this work was better than what's available to them at
home, they wouldn't come here. As far as chemicals, that's a whole different
topic we shouldn't get any deeper into. It's enough to say that the problem
exists because people are paid to let it exist, and it would be a problem
regardless of who was doing the vegetable picking.