As these farmworkers' children seek a different future, farms look for workers abroad

https://www.npr.org/2023/07/28/1189...or-shortage-h2a-visa-dan-newhouse-immigration

As a former teenage tomato picker, I believe we should pay American citizens to harvest our crops and let the wages and prices rise until we can reach an equilibrium of citizen wages and the market price Americans will pay.
Why should we allow or contract immigrant labor to come* in to work cheap when we have Americans unemployed?
*Normally on a labor contract with Mexico, but not so much anymore.

 

Basically, farm work sucks, and everyone is eager to move up the ladder to better, higher-paying jobs. I don't know if you've ever noticed, but farm payroll is never mentioned in the economic statistics we see on the news. It's always non-farm payroll. Add to that that it's a highly physically active job, and it's just hard to do, and it's no surprise that parents want their children to move up the ladder.

Plus, immigrants are no longer taking farming jobs either. They are now taking better-paying jobs in construction and landscaping. They're not doing the farm work anymore. Much less Americans taking those jobs. It looks like we are on the path to starvation as farming jobs get hollowed out. But what can we do? We've got to learn that someone must fill these jobs, or we're all doomed to go hungry.