Farmers would love to pay their staff members $50/hour---if they made anywhere near that. The average farmer in Massachusetts makes less than $35,000--and many aspire to that. There is also a housing shortage. And health care coverage is expensive (it used to be a good deal in Mass.). Customers need to suck it up and pay for what high-qu…
Farmers would love to pay their staff members $50/hour---if they made anywhere near that. The average farmer in Massachusetts makes less than $35,000--and many aspire to that. There is also a housing shortage. And health care coverage is expensive (it used to be a good deal in Mass.). Customers need to suck it up and pay for what high-quality produce, eggs, and meat grown by well compensated staff costs. But instead they whine when eggs cost more than $3/dozen. Do you know what goes into raising chickens and eggs well and getting them to market, where they are marked up by the stores?
Yep! i am not arguing the point that costs are somehow lower than they are. I agree that farmers should be fairly and actually generously compensated given the services they offer. And i am also aware of inflation and the unreasonable costs of everything. My point is that bringing in foreign labor to lower costs is not going to solve the long term problems you bring up. In fact, it will maintain the expectation of people that they can get a dozen eggs for 2 or 3 dollars. It is a like a drug habit. Outsourcing everything has led to the problems we are apparently "arguing" over.
Exactly, but what are folks going to do about it? I'd say it starts with consumers stopping their complaints about costs. Pay for good products made and grown by fairly compensated workers. If consumers are willing to do that, there will be less work for imported labor, if that's the goal.
Yes, consumers need to stop complaining about costs! I paint houses and charge $15K, the other painters in town charge $10K, and they're getting all the work. They need to stop complaining about costs, damnit! My kids need new shoes!
Edit/Clarifying: Your comments here are not consistent. You're saying farms should hire local white people (who really aren't always available), not migrant workers, even if the migrant workers are affordable and work harder? And that farms should not raise prices to reflect the cost of hiring local workers who have local housing and do not work to a top standard! Our farm is all locals but housing is an issue. Farms closer to Boston are able to use the programs that bring in Jamaicans and others legally and for a season and with housing and visa, etc. taken care of. Small farms are disappearing due to costs, markets, labor, etc. And again no one has ever said "did the farm laborers arrive?" at our farm. They are staff
If we want to give people a fair wage, that might have to be everyone in the civilization to maintain one that doesn't collapse. But this civ wants to eat its cake and have it too. But how does one do that? Well, one first eats their cake, waits for it to pass through their intestinal tract and voila; the cake again. Eat enough of that kind of cake and you, too, will collapse, like your idiocy-for-a-civilization.
Ironically, there's little that's civilized about it. Likewise, there's little that's actually economic about its 'economics'.
Over here in Nova Scotia, we grow our own apples. What apples show up in our grocery stores? Why apples from Chile of course. Cuz, 'economics'.
Because folks want predictably uniform apples at a certain price and year-round. We need to move away from that. I know it doesn't feel great when you crave green grapes in the winter and the only ones available are from Peru. Because: season. (BTW, when I visited my friend in Truro, I couldn't believe how many forgotten apple trees loaded with apples lined the roads. That was probably October.)
Of course folks, along with their civilization, will be having to adjust their expectations to meet reality-- that thing that JHK often talks about hereon.
We're only now finally finishing the butternut squash that I grew and picked in September. We still have garlic in the crisper picked in late July.
And then there's canning, salting, fermenting, drying and pickling, etc.. -- knowledge and skills many of us lost to a drift over time into a kind of unreality.
Yes, there should be no imported labor! But we should reserve the right to complain about what we wish to complain about. Reasonableness is often in the eyes of the beholder.
~ Fuck The Crony-Capitalist Plutarchy Farm Industry ~
"Bill Mollison: People question me coming through the American frontier these days. They ask, 'What's your occupation?' I say, 'I'm just a simple gardener.' And that is deeply seditious. If you're a simple person today, and want to live simply, that is awfully seditious. And to advise people to live simply is more seditious still.
You see, the worst thing about permaculture is that it's extremely successful, but it has no center, and no hierarchy.
Alan Atkisson (interviewer): So that's worst from whose perspective?
Bill: Anybody that wants to extinguish it. It's something with a million heads. It's a way of thinking which is already loose, and you can't put a way of thinking back in the box.
Alan: Is it an anarchist movement?
Bill: ...You won't get cooperation out of a hierarchical system. You get enforced directions from the top, and nothing I know of can run like that. I think the world would function extremely well with millions of little cooperative groups, all in relation to each other."
Staff members? Your choice of words is telling, Carol. They are farm laborers. If they don't like low wages, there are plenty of other opportunities. And don't make excuses for them. That's a cop out. It's called personal responsibility - a character trait missing from the Leftists. I don't care how crunchy they are.
But you don't work in the business. Your own terminology and defending cheap goods tell me that. At the farm, we discuss pricing and staffing every week.
Of course you do, because markets are competitive. When you can't compete, you're out. Truth is, most don't want a true free market, because they know they can't compete. Winners love competition - thrive on it - they compete and win, losers whine and go home.
You sound a poultry farmer. Want to sell eggs @ $5, guaranteed? Go into the commodities markets and do it. That's what they are there for, a hedge to mitigate risk, lock in operating profits and stabilize markets - not a casino, as many think.
again, if you were really in ag, you wouldn't make simplistic assumption about the farm operation I work with. And you would have a glimmer of the finer points of the farm markets. Go buy some cheap eggs and Peruvian grapes.
It's better to be educated in Ag, and not be in the business, than be in the business and not be educated about it. The vagaries and inherent risk in the farming business are tough enough.
Have eggs right in the back yard. Peruvian grapes? Or the 3K milers from Cali? No thanks, I eat local and in season. Finer points of the farm markets? Supply and demand, sweetie, not that complicated - same as any market.
Ron, I made a related point on The OIl Drum over 10 years go (I might try to fetch it later) where industrial meat producers were ostensibly feeding cow parts back to the cows and creating mad cow disease. My point then was that people who have or claim experience/knowledge/professional expertise in some field don't necessarily have or apply the right kinds of experience/knowledge/professional expertise.
Like that guy who permanently went down with his Titan submarine, taking others with him.
It's not just supply and demand, it is market education and embodied value. My point is that consumers don't see that if they are going to create jobs for local farm workers (and grow responsibly, etc.), they are going to have to pay for products that created those jobs. That's why I try not to complain about $6butternut squash, $9 eggs, etc. Similiarly, I do not buy from Amazon nor Dollar stores.
Carol, if I was a rich CEO, say, and you lived in a small town, I could roll in and buy up all kinds of land and resources out from under your and everyone else's feet. But what do you think that would do to the cost of everything?
Part of the point is that if we're going to have a civilization that's worth anything, we're going to have to take the necessary steps to avoid that kind of thing.
Money doesn't equal land, nor labour, and can never.
That's why I'm pro-gift-economy and it is suspected that it's the only economy that will work.
If Earth was a pie, you cannot have the so-called rich or richer take more from it than anyone else, because we are all from the Earth. It's all ours. It's the commons. It doesn't belong to any one person more than any other.
But our culture says otherwise. And it's a recipe for ultimate collapse of that kind of ass-backward civilization.
Exactly! How do you suggest we avoid that? The farm I work at sold the farm land's development rights to a land-preservation nonprofit, so it will always be farmed. However, other New England farms are being turned into developments, which is why there is an effort underway to counter that by promoting alternatives as well as ways to develop part of the land and keep the rest in farming. What helps is if folks buy the farms' products! (Much gift economy at our farm. The owner is famous for it.)
Farmers would love to pay their staff members $50/hour---if they made anywhere near that. The average farmer in Massachusetts makes less than $35,000--and many aspire to that. There is also a housing shortage. And health care coverage is expensive (it used to be a good deal in Mass.). Customers need to suck it up and pay for what high-quality produce, eggs, and meat grown by well compensated staff costs. But instead they whine when eggs cost more than $3/dozen. Do you know what goes into raising chickens and eggs well and getting them to market, where they are marked up by the stores?
Yep! i am not arguing the point that costs are somehow lower than they are. I agree that farmers should be fairly and actually generously compensated given the services they offer. And i am also aware of inflation and the unreasonable costs of everything. My point is that bringing in foreign labor to lower costs is not going to solve the long term problems you bring up. In fact, it will maintain the expectation of people that they can get a dozen eggs for 2 or 3 dollars. It is a like a drug habit. Outsourcing everything has led to the problems we are apparently "arguing" over.
Exactly, but what are folks going to do about it? I'd say it starts with consumers stopping their complaints about costs. Pay for good products made and grown by fairly compensated workers. If consumers are willing to do that, there will be less work for imported labor, if that's the goal.
Yes, consumers need to stop complaining about costs! I paint houses and charge $15K, the other painters in town charge $10K, and they're getting all the work. They need to stop complaining about costs, damnit! My kids need new shoes!
Edit/Clarifying: Your comments here are not consistent. You're saying farms should hire local white people (who really aren't always available), not migrant workers, even if the migrant workers are affordable and work harder? And that farms should not raise prices to reflect the cost of hiring local workers who have local housing and do not work to a top standard! Our farm is all locals but housing is an issue. Farms closer to Boston are able to use the programs that bring in Jamaicans and others legally and for a season and with housing and visa, etc. taken care of. Small farms are disappearing due to costs, markets, labor, etc. And again no one has ever said "did the farm laborers arrive?" at our farm. They are staff
Your introduction of race is telling. Race has zero to do with economics. Try harder.
You are guilty of the sin of noticing. Odin smiles.
It's conversation worthy of Flatland.
youtu.be/UnURElCzGc0?si=B6tGX5iEoOwknlMu
~ Cart-Before-The-Horse Civilization ~
If we want to give people a fair wage, that might have to be everyone in the civilization to maintain one that doesn't collapse. But this civ wants to eat its cake and have it too. But how does one do that? Well, one first eats their cake, waits for it to pass through their intestinal tract and voila; the cake again. Eat enough of that kind of cake and you, too, will collapse, like your idiocy-for-a-civilization.
Ironically, there's little that's civilized about it. Likewise, there's little that's actually economic about its 'economics'.
Over here in Nova Scotia, we grow our own apples. What apples show up in our grocery stores? Why apples from Chile of course. Cuz, 'economics'.
Because folks want predictably uniform apples at a certain price and year-round. We need to move away from that. I know it doesn't feel great when you crave green grapes in the winter and the only ones available are from Peru. Because: season. (BTW, when I visited my friend in Truro, I couldn't believe how many forgotten apple trees loaded with apples lined the roads. That was probably October.)
Of course folks, along with their civilization, will be having to adjust their expectations to meet reality-- that thing that JHK often talks about hereon.
We're only now finally finishing the butternut squash that I grew and picked in September. We still have garlic in the crisper picked in late July.
And then there's canning, salting, fermenting, drying and pickling, etc.. -- knowledge and skills many of us lost to a drift over time into a kind of unreality.
Yes, there should be no imported labor! But we should reserve the right to complain about what we wish to complain about. Reasonableness is often in the eyes of the beholder.
Yes, people are going to complain. Some of the complaints have weight and some don't. But it's a human right.
Stop going to a big ag market that marks up prices. Big ag and big pharma and health insurance companies must go
?
~ Fuck The Crony-Capitalist Plutarchy Farm Industry ~
"Bill Mollison: People question me coming through the American frontier these days. They ask, 'What's your occupation?' I say, 'I'm just a simple gardener.' And that is deeply seditious. If you're a simple person today, and want to live simply, that is awfully seditious. And to advise people to live simply is more seditious still.
You see, the worst thing about permaculture is that it's extremely successful, but it has no center, and no hierarchy.
Alan Atkisson (interviewer): So that's worst from whose perspective?
Bill: Anybody that wants to extinguish it. It's something with a million heads. It's a way of thinking which is already loose, and you can't put a way of thinking back in the box.
Alan: Is it an anarchist movement?
Bill: ...You won't get cooperation out of a hierarchical system. You get enforced directions from the top, and nothing I know of can run like that. I think the world would function extremely well with millions of little cooperative groups, all in relation to each other."
Staff members? Your choice of words is telling, Carol. They are farm laborers. If they don't like low wages, there are plenty of other opportunities. And don't make excuses for them. That's a cop out. It's called personal responsibility - a character trait missing from the Leftists. I don't care how crunchy they are.
Only someone who has no connection to farming would say to a farm worker that she doesn't know what she is talking about. But enjoy your rage today.
Educated in Ag Economics. Sorry sweetie. Try harder.
But you don't work in the business. Your own terminology and defending cheap goods tell me that. At the farm, we discuss pricing and staffing every week.
Of course you do, because markets are competitive. When you can't compete, you're out. Truth is, most don't want a true free market, because they know they can't compete. Winners love competition - thrive on it - they compete and win, losers whine and go home.
You sound a poultry farmer. Want to sell eggs @ $5, guaranteed? Go into the commodities markets and do it. That's what they are there for, a hedge to mitigate risk, lock in operating profits and stabilize markets - not a casino, as many think.
again, if you were really in ag, you wouldn't make simplistic assumption about the farm operation I work with. And you would have a glimmer of the finer points of the farm markets. Go buy some cheap eggs and Peruvian grapes.
It's better to be educated in Ag, and not be in the business, than be in the business and not be educated about it. The vagaries and inherent risk in the farming business are tough enough.
Have eggs right in the back yard. Peruvian grapes? Or the 3K milers from Cali? No thanks, I eat local and in season. Finer points of the farm markets? Supply and demand, sweetie, not that complicated - same as any market.
Good luck.
Ron, I made a related point on The OIl Drum over 10 years go (I might try to fetch it later) where industrial meat producers were ostensibly feeding cow parts back to the cows and creating mad cow disease. My point then was that people who have or claim experience/knowledge/professional expertise in some field don't necessarily have or apply the right kinds of experience/knowledge/professional expertise.
Like that guy who permanently went down with his Titan submarine, taking others with him.
It's not just supply and demand, it is market education and embodied value. My point is that consumers don't see that if they are going to create jobs for local farm workers (and grow responsibly, etc.), they are going to have to pay for products that created those jobs. That's why I try not to complain about $6butternut squash, $9 eggs, etc. Similiarly, I do not buy from Amazon nor Dollar stores.
Carol, if I was a rich CEO, say, and you lived in a small town, I could roll in and buy up all kinds of land and resources out from under your and everyone else's feet. But what do you think that would do to the cost of everything?
Part of the point is that if we're going to have a civilization that's worth anything, we're going to have to take the necessary steps to avoid that kind of thing.
Money doesn't equal land, nor labour, and can never.
That's why I'm pro-gift-economy and it is suspected that it's the only economy that will work.
If Earth was a pie, you cannot have the so-called rich or richer take more from it than anyone else, because we are all from the Earth. It's all ours. It's the commons. It doesn't belong to any one person more than any other.
But our culture says otherwise. And it's a recipe for ultimate collapse of that kind of ass-backward civilization.
Exactly! How do you suggest we avoid that? The farm I work at sold the farm land's development rights to a land-preservation nonprofit, so it will always be farmed. However, other New England farms are being turned into developments, which is why there is an effort underway to counter that by promoting alternatives as well as ways to develop part of the land and keep the rest in farming. What helps is if folks buy the farms' products! (Much gift economy at our farm. The owner is famous for it.)