I just heard a news report about dairy farmers in Wisconsin. Many of them hire undocumented people because they can't get anyone else to do the job. be at work at 2am for milking, shovel manure etc. "Nowhere would mass deportation have a bigger impact than on Wisconsin’s dairy farms, where an estimated 70% of the workforce is made up of immigrants, mostly from Mexico and Central America. Because Congress has never created a year-round visa for low-skilled farm workers, almost all of Wisconsin’s immigrant dairy workers are undocumented. Without them, experts say, the whole industry would collapse."
Well now, here's a reality check. I know our groceries seem high priced, as we have been used to relatively inexpensive food and milk for decades. (Food is much more expensive in France, because the government makes sure farmers have a better shot at a living wage.) But having grown up on a farm in Iowa, I can tell you for sure that every single one of my cousins did not carry on farming when they grew up because they learned as kids how physically hard the work is on the farm. Shoveling manure, milking cows by hand or with the "modern" milking machine, carrying the water and feed, planting, cultivating, moving the livestock, working on the hay baler neatly stacking those heavy bales when it's just short of volcanic temperatures in the sun while taking in those salt tablets so they don't get dehydrated so they can still function a bit longer. It was a good life, and I have wonderful memories. But it was very hard work. Not 9-5 either. Cows had to be milked twice a day, eggs had to be gathered daily, weighed, candled to check for quality or blood in the egg or double-yolkers, then packed to sell in town. There was always a fence to be mended, or critter that was injured or being picked on. At harvest time there were more long dusty days. And heaven help you if a hail storm hits and puts holes in your metal roof. If you wanted a vacation, you better have born enough kids to take over the work for a week or two while you were away, cuz farming is a 24/7 business.
Why did all my cousins and their kids move off the farm? Because, simply, they could make more money with their brain than their brawn. If small farmers in the US were making decent profits, most would still be functioning rather than selling out to Big-AG. But farming is also an expensive business. Tractors, combines, rakes, balers... BIG $$$ (Hundreds of thousands of dollars) that small farmers can't pay, and on top of that, John Deere for example, had/still has a policy that you can't fix your own rig and have to take it to their expensive mechanics. (Hence, the farmer's 'right to repair' lawsuits) Years ago farmers learned how to be plumbers, electricians, carpenters, roofers, concrete pourers, fence-builders, furnace fixers, windmill and well operators, animal breeders and care-givers, pseudo-vets, orchard managers, gardeners, bakers and cooks, babysitters and launderesses because that's what they had to know how to do to run a functional farm. (If you hire a farmer, you'll get your money's worth, because they truly know how to work and get the job done!)
But, my friends, the pay was pitiful. One hailstorm in an afternoon could wipe out your year's profits. And dangerous?! My uncle's tractor auger nearly drilled a hole right through him as he was pinned against a wall, and cows have a good kick too, and buck sheep have pretty good aim. If we consumers had paid more for the food the farmers grew, there would be more small farms, even though the work is hard. It is a good life, an honest life, but it's challenging.
BTW, I still know how to milk a cow.
