Farmers don't get paid enough. They take terrible risks at the mercy of the weather for every crop they grow, and if all goes well, their competitors drive down the price due to supply and demand. Farming is terrible that way. Most farmers try to grow multiple crops to protect themselves from disaster so they have enough income to pay the mortgage, which most farmers owe lots of money on, and the need to invest in heavy equipment to avoid hiring people since Obamacare made health insurance benefits so expensive mechanization is a better investment. It all sucks, really. But farming is critical. America is a not a manufacturing economy anymore. Its primary industries are agriculture and tourism. High Tech is mostly going to China, since Americans are always willing to export their technology to cheap manufacturing in order to punish American workers for having the nerve to ask for wages for their work. This is why real unemployment is so high. And the only people thriving in this economy are stock market investors who own those companies firing Americans and building things in China instead. This won't work forever.
Unemployed Americans are a burden on society. They still get to vote, so they vote themselves benefits. They'll eventually demand their officials tax those big corporations, who will simply move overseas to be untaxable. Attempts to tax investors will move those investments overseas and international trust funds will send living expense money back, reducing the tax burden on them dramatically, especially if things are structured right. And you don't get rich by spending stupidly. You don't stay rich by being stupid either.
So, yes. We need more jobs. I think the answer is to pay farmers more. Correct the prices on food. If international markets want to grow more of their own, let them. International markets have shown they breed more hungry mouths faster than they grow their own economies. Charging more for the food they eat is a win for us, and motivates them to do something more useful. The USA has largely ideal growing conditions in the Midwest and California, provided there is sufficient water. The Great Basin needs more water, but that's available from the Columbia River provided an Aqueduct is built to carry it through Eastern Oregon and northern Nevada. Crops could be grown there. Fields closed due to drought could be restored. Towns could grow and flourish, with land for all those hungry mouths, mouths willing to stop living in Poverty in Oakland and Stockton and South Sacramento and make something of themselves.
Right now farming pays less than minimum wages and often requires 18 hours a day. Farmers are in massive debt to have enough land and equipment to work it to raise a large enough crop to pay for that, and they don't always profit if something goes wrong. Govt offers farm subsidies so crops can be grown that lose money, usually because those crops are grown in stupid places because a farm is better than no farm, thus southern Arizona's Yuma River Valley. The trouble with that is all linked to the commodities market, as best I can tell. Eventually, farmers will need to sit down and probably organize higher prices. The market won't like that, but they'd be able to pay off their farm debts and make sufficient profit to pay non-Mexicans full wages instead of $1.50/hr. Mexicans would like that too, since they could send more money home. Unfortunately, they are willing to work for almost nothing for farm hands are grossly underpaid. The system as it stands is broken.
Imagine that farm hands made $15/hr. And that minimum wage laws were enforced on all employers, including farmers. Prices would go up, as would the cost of food, but it would go up for everybody, including foreigners they're exporting grain to, so that's fine. If being a farm hand pays more than flipping burgers, it is a job worth doing. Farm hands generally work in rural areas where home are plentiful and cheap. And I mean homes, not apartments. At $15/hr in Colusa or Williams or Marysville, you can afford a mortgage. You don't have to be a burglar to make ends meet, or waste time and money commuting to Sacramento for minimum wage because you can't get minimum wage jobs in those rural towns. Too many cheap Mexican laborers, paying kickbacks on their wages to their managers because they're used to corruption and don't mind it. I often wonder if that's why Mexicans working at Taco Bell always look so angry. They're probably NOT getting minimum wage. Having illegal economies in America undercuts the entire thing, and I think that's why so many people are unemployed. Well, that and destroying the Middle Class seems to be a primary motivation of the current two party system. Things aren't working.
Being a farmer doesn't pay enough. That has to change. Land prices are too high. Wholesale and commodity prices are too low. If Farmers owned their lands, owned their tractors and combines, and had financial cushion to absorb crop losses rather than being bled dry by insurance fees and low profits, they'd be able to pay employees, farm hands, to do the work so they weren't working inhuman 18 hour days which leads to the mistakes that cause death and dismemberment rates the highest of any profession, including the Military and Police. Its interesting how the political parties ignore this, because farmers don't have enough votes or pay enough graft to matter. They get their subsidies and that's good enough, right?
I grew up with a cattle ranch behind my house. And vineyards a mile away, behind the local fire station. Matanzas Creek makes a very good Chardonnay. That's a type of agriculture that pays, though not as much as they'd like. Wineries eventually became boutique tax shelters for richer corporations that own them and allow the vintners to carry on making award winning wines the owners can brag about on the gold course. For their purposes, this works. And the wines end up subsidized cheaper so the Middle Class can drink them and provide income to keep the wineries funded the rest of the way. Its fine. Vegetable farmers do subscription farm boxes, but that only works if the veggies are better quality and more convenient than the farmers market. Orchards can deliver fruit or even premium jams under subscription or website mail order. This works well so long as shipping costs are reasonable and the product doesn't break. UPS and FedEx are both pretty rough with packages. Their job is to get it to you. Not to get it to you unbroken. Package it carefully to take shocks in every direction.
If your primary market in farming is rich people, be aware that expensive food is a fad, and fads end. Real quality is grown in your own garden. The rest is convenience, and ignorance rules the market shelves, with veggies chosen on appearance rather than invisible properties like nutritional content you can't see and can't measure without lab equipment. Getting cheated at the supermarket is all too common. This is why housewives and thrifty singles buy on sales and shop in multiple locations because every dollar counts. Farmers must find the middle ground, particularly as oil gets more expensive and transportation costs start to matter more than they used to.
Tourism and agriculture combine nicely in orchard country pie shops, in vineyards with B&Bs and bicycle rental companies, and all the various fun people can get up to surrounded by ripening crops and the fruits of harvest. Couples find it inspiring. Foodies love the flavors. Bargain hunters love the prices and direct quality. And Gear Heads love the twisty roads. Its all good. I am not a city person so I don't see the appeal of being surrounded by hungry, angry people. I like the countryside better. Apparently, this makes me eccentric. Maybe more people will get eccentric if farming pays enough to make it a real career of choice rather than necessity.
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