Is the US Outsourcing Its Agriculture, Too?

Farmers and farm organizations are distressed over the failure of Congress to arrange for immigrant agriculture labor. Adding to their difficulties, INS is threatening to crack down on their hiring of illegal  immigrant labor (Juliana Barbassa, AP, "Troubles grow, farmers warn", The Press-Enterprise, Riverside, California, Thursday, August 16, 2007, A2). They state that American farming in labor-intensive crops, such as nuts, fruit, and fresh vegetables, cannot stay in business without immigrant laborers. Some big farmers are contemplating moving their production overseas where cheap land and cheap labor are available; they would then export produce back to the US.

Let's suppose that this scenario comes to pass. Congress does not provide for agricultural guest workers and simultaneously the INS cracks down on farmers so that farmers are afraid to hire illegals. As a result, those farmers able to rent lands in Latin America do so. There they can get cheap labor and export their produce back to the US. What would remain of agriculture in the US? The large, mechanized, food and fiber, commodity producers--e.g., beef, pork, corn, grain, tomatoes for canning, cotton--would stay in business and would remain the mainstay of US agricultural exporters. The dairy industry would stay. The niche farmers--organic farmers, CSA farms, truck farms--would remain.

But much would be lost. The fruit and nut industry would be decimated. The apple industry has largely left New England. We would expect it to collapse in the upper Midwest. Other fruits, like peach, apricots,  and citrus, would be greatly diminished. Citrus has already mostly left Southern California and is being squeezed out of Florida and California's central valley. The large table vegetable producers would go out of business.

Foods would not disappear from  our supermarkets; but they would be imported and bear stamps saying, as many do today, Produce of Chile, Produce of Mexico, Produce of Brazil, Produce of China. And so on.

What would the United States look like, should this scenario come to pass? Basically, we would look like Britain. We would be nearly completely urbanized, with no functioning rural society and rural culture with its own means of support. Agriculture would largely disappear like heavy manufacturing. The farming that remains would be a tiny industry, servicing niche markets. We would import nearly all of our food. We would not be able to feed ourselves as a nation. We would be a high tax, service, welfare state, with a population most of whom would have no experience of business ownership and no experience of producing real goods. We would, I submit, cease to be an independent people.

Is this what we want America to be?  It strikes me as a serious weakening of the national strength. It would make us as vulnerable to external pressures as our import of foreign oil or our import of manufactured goods from China. Like European nations, we would be afraid of most everything and would make a virtue of our fear by calling it pacifism. The world is much too dangerous for us to be  thrown into this position.

Update. September 5, 2007. The news that some large American growers are moving or contemplating moving to Mexico in order to have adequate labor has been picked up by major news media: International Herald Tribune, New York Times (same story as in IHT).

Comments

[Chris]

Have you read the book Plenty by Alisa Smith and James MacKinnon? It's a great book and it talks about how most of the food folks eat comes from an average of 1500 miles away. They chose to spend a year eating foods grown within a 100 miles of their home. It's interesting to read about their quest for local foods and how they end up developing relationships with their local farmers as well as learning to enjoy a seasonal diet.

The local foods movement is strong here in Maine but we could always do better, right? Here's hoping the Great Brittan scenario never comes to pass.