[mason240]

>- Farmers in Alabama are fretting that crops may rot in the ground for a lack of workers to bring in the harvest.

The oil field boom in ND didn't have a problem getting skilled workers from across the country to live in tents because they paid them well.

They AL farmers are not worried about finding workers, they want to lowball American laborers so they can throw their hands the air and claim that they need a supply of immigrants laborers, which they can exploit.

[randomdata]

There is also the fact that we have more than enough food to go around (at least among the nations producing the food). I expect the AL farmers don't have the resources to pay more for workers, but they cannot afford to pay more because the crop isn't really needed in the first place. Nobody in the US, that I am aware of, went hungry because of that failure. If that loss was going to be devastating to the consumer, they would have opened their wallets to ensure it got harvested.

[logfromblammo]

Not entirely accurate.

The migrant farm laborers are actively avoiding Alabama as a result of anti-immigrant legislation that passed a few years ago. Even though it was subsequently voided by court order, the workers remember it, and are not stupid, so they will demand a premium for dealing with Alabama's racist, protectionist bullshit.

And even paying that is cheaper than offering the sort of labor standard that a citizen--even a high-school dropout or ex-con--would expect in America.

That's pretty much what they deserve for voting the same party in every election, without regard to their own economic self-interest.

Edit: The state raised the perceived cost of working for migrant laborers, to the point that the prevailing wage offered by the farmers is no longer sufficient to entice those workers to come to work. They aren't lowballing to preferentially employ migrants, they are just lowballing all labor, period, because as commodity producers, the labor expenses cut directly into their profit margin.

[bko]

People are paid based on their productivity. If the farmer can get $10 of crop per hour, he will pay up to $10 an hour for the worker. If he can't find anyone for that price, he'll let the crops rot because he would be losing money. Sure, he could be letting them rot to make a point but it's costing him money and such ideological decisions are not very savvy business practices. Also a lone farmer making this point is unlikely to have a major impact so I doubt he would be willing to sacrifice money for practically nothing