Well, get ready for some high prices
Reuters speaks to a farmer in California’s central valley:
“In the fields, I would say 70% of the workers are gone,” she said in an interview. “If 70% of your workforce doesn’t show up, 70% of your crop doesn’t get picked and can go bad in one day. Most Americans don’t want to do this work. Most farmers here are barely breaking even. I fear this has created a tipping point where many will go bust.”
[…]
In the vast agricultural lands north of Los Angeles, stretching from Ventura County into the state’s central valley, two farmers, two field supervisors and four immigrant farmworkers told Reuters this month that the ICE raids have led a majority of workers to stop showing up.
That means crops are not being picked and fruit and vegetables are rotting at peak harvest time, they said.
One Mexican farm supervisor, who asked not to be named, was overseeing a field being prepared for planting strawberries last week. Usually he would have 300 workers, he said. On this day he had just 80. Another supervisor at a different farm said he usually has 80 workers in a field, but today just 17.
This is going to have an effect on everyone’s food costs:
Over a third of U.S. vegetables and over three-quarters of the country’s fruits and nuts are grown in California, according to the California Department of Food and Agriculture. The state’s farms and ranches generated nearly $60 billion in agricultural sales in 2023.
Trump is saying that they’re “working something out” with the farmers who will “take responsibility” for the undocumented agriculture workers. I’d guess that will likely be some indentured servant concept like there has been in the past. But after what we’ve seen happening all over the country, including in the fields of California, I have to wonder if that will make a difference:
Of the four immigrant farmworkers Reuters spoke to, two are in the country illegally. These two spoke on the condition of anonymity, out of fear of being arrested by ICE.
One, aged 54, has worked in U.S. agricultural fields for 30 years and has a wife and children in the country. He said most of his colleagues have stopped showing up for work.
“If they show up to work, they don’t know if they will ever see their family again,” he said.
You can bet they’ll also be worried that their families will be picked up and thrown into detention while they’re working.
This is the inevitable result of Trump’s immigration terrorism.