12/13/2010
I saw this headline via Amren.com:Georgia Farm Bureau cautions state on immigrationThe words "farmers are heavily dependent on immigrant labor" means that "farmers are heavily dependent on illegal immigrant labor".By RAY HENRY — Dec 8, 2010 8:07 AM ET
By The Associated Press
LYONS, Ga. (AP) Georgia farmers, many of whom are dependent on immigrant labor, have fired a warning shot at state lawmakers considering ways to crack down on illegal immigrants.
Delegates to the Georgia Farm Bureau’s annual convention voted Tuesday to adopt a policy that opposes any state immigration measure that "discriminates against the farm worker" and puts farmers at a competitive disadvantage. The vote marks the first time the Farm Bureau has adopted an immigration policy directed specifically at Georgia state leaders.
"We think immigration is a federal issue, and it needs a federal solution," said Jon Huffmaster, the Farm Bureau’s legislative director. "And we think a patchwork of state laws could cause more problems than it solves."
Many farmers are heavily dependent on immigrant labor to harvest crops by hand, particularly vegetables and peaches that are easily bruised and damaged by machines. Huffmaster said farmers in vegetable-growing regions first pushed for the new policy, one of many that was created or revised during the convention at Jekyll Island.
[More]
That means that what they're doing is not farming, but organized crime.
That means it should be the State that’s warning the Farm Bureau, not the other way around.
You can also see that they know there is such a thing as mechanization, but they've chosen not to pursue it. The reason fragile peaches that need to be picked by hand are growing in these farms is that’s what they planted there.
I covered this issue in a post called The Needs of America’s Farmers, also about criminal enterprise farming in Georgia. In 1998, the INS raided farms using illegal labor to harvest the onion crop in Vidalia, and four Georgia congressmen made the INS stop, saying that the
Immigration and Naturalization Service "does not understand the needs of America’s farmers."Here are the needs of America’s farmers, with respect to illegal cheap labor:
- Some of them need to be paying higher wages, so they can hire Americans.
- Some of them need to mechanize their operations.
- Some of them need to switch to less labor-intensive crops, which can be harvested by machine.
- If some of them still can’t make a living farming without importing illegals to harvest their crops, they need to stop farming, and get a job, because their farm is costing them and the nation more than the value of their produce.
- And finally, some of them need to be fined or jailed.
This is a content archive of VDARE.com, which Letitia James forced off of the Internet using lawfare.