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With Mexico's crashing birthrate; even if most of our 'labor intensive' work were to be outsourced SOB right now---------in less than 20 years, that country will be facing the same labor issues as the USA is presently.
With Mexico's crashing birthrate; even if most of our 'labor intensive' work were to be outsourced SOB right now---------in less than 20 years, that country will be facing the same labor issues as the USA is presently.
Indeed that's true - and that in of itself will help resolve many of the problems - both here and in Mexico. With an eventual labor shortage in Mexico, wages will rise, living standards will increase, and illegal immigrating here will dry up.
Unfortunately that's still a ways off.
Ken
PS - I'm actually very optimistic about Mexico's long-term future. Living standards are already improving rapidly. This is an event happening not just in Mexico, but throughout the Third World as those nations previously left behind are getting their populations under control and starting to catch up with the modern world and the standard of living it tends to bring (of all those billions of Third-worlders changing into western-like consumers brings it's own set of challenges - mainly shortages of energy etc - but that's a WHOLE 'nother issue).
The problem with the idea of mechanizing such farm work is that mechanization works fine for things like grain, pototoes etc - in other words farm crops that are not particulary fragile - but the crops being hand-picked are still being hand-picked for a very good reason. Crops like strawberries, cherries and apples are extremely fragile and bruise easily - thereby diminishing their value and shelf-life. They also don't all ripen at the same time so harvesting is far more complicated. When a wheat field is harvested, they just mow it all down, they don't care about preserving the plant intact for another round of harvesting next week and the week after that. With the fruits and vegetables typically picked by immigrant labor, you have to reach into each plant and carefully select and pick individual fruits while leaving other individual fruits in place for the next round. All this requires vision or some other sort of sensory input and some degree of decision-making typicaly not found in farm automation.
I'm not saying it's not technically possible nowaways, but it's horrendously expensive and involves equipment that would likely be rather fragile and prone to adverse impacts from the weather. It's far cheaper simply to hire immigrant labor - or barring that, to simply move your agri-business outside the US.
Such farm work MIGHT end up being mechanized - but I wouldn't hold my breath, and it's unlikely to be implimented in any large scale anytime soon - and the labor crises that will appear with the disappearance of migrant farm workers is here NOW (or on it's way shortly). Farmers are not going to wait 5-10 years for mechanized solutions. If they are unable to compete economically, they will either close up their farms, change over to the handful of crops that are easily mechanized (such as wheat or corn farming) or move their business to Mexico etc.
Ken
Ken, the reason I even mentioned mechanization is because I read and viewed a special documentary about this. They even showed the machines they are already testing and I was amazed. Robots where picking apples with precision and they mentioned how the cost factor was being taken into account as well as making the machines energy efficient and environmentally friendly. They are farther along on this than most people could even fathom. When it comes to food Ken, I believe it's just as important to get our food here just like pharmaceuticals are made here. It's a safety issue.
I fail to understand why you think farming will somehow magically stay here in the US when other industries have already moved to foreign countries to take advantage of cheap labor there. Other industires have had that happen, why do you expect farming to somehow be different when the basic underlying factors are the same - specifically cost of production here vs cost of production there?
Ken
Computers, toys, TV's etc... don't have time sensitive distribution issues to deal with like food. You can't compare the two. It's apples and oranges.(So to speak)
Computers, toys, TV's etc... don't have time sensitive distribution issues to deal with like food. You can't compare the two. It's apples and oranges.(So to speak)
And yet fruits and vegitables ALREADY come from Mexico and points south. It's not a whole lot further to come from northern Mexico than to come from California, Arizona, Texas etc.
Ken, the reason I even mentioned mechanization is because I read and viewed a special documentary about this. They even showed the machines they are already testing and I was amazed. Robots where picking apples with precision and they mentioned how the cost factor was being taken into account as well as making the machines energy efficient and environmentally friendly. They are farther along on this than most people could even fathom. When it comes to food Ken, I believe it's just as important to get our food here just like pharmaceuticals are made here. It's a safety issue.
Interesting.
When they start appearing in production, let me know - I just don't think it's going to happen soon enough to help preserve America's farms if immigrant labor disappears.
[quote=UrbanQuest;3257213]We are working, what are you doing.[/quote
This is a picture of me and my friends in this forum waiting for those willing to take over those jobs available in Pennsylvania. By the way, you dont need to speak Spanish, English is just fine.
This is a picture of me and my friends in this forum waiting for those willing to take over those jobs available in Pennsylvania. By the way, you dont need to speak Spanish, English is just fine.
Make welfare much tougher to get in Pa. (and everywhere else) and many so-called 'menial' jobs would look a whole lot better.
Yes; I have worked doing unskilled work in the past.
this is a racist, stereotypical comment which has noting to do with the original hread.
Racist, steretypical? where? how?now if you look a little closer you'll see a lot of that in some posts from your friends.
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LOL, where at? Pennsylvania?
