you can’t have competitive wages on a free market as long as somebody else is willing to do it for less. That’s why migrant labor would have to end first.
Didn’t we try that here after Brexit? From what I remember, farmers were having to let crops go to waste because Brits didn’t want the jobs, even after wages were raised. Most farm work is seasonal, people don’t really want that instability.
Tbh, I’m not convinced that this would really happen. There’s not that much price elasticity to a lot of agricultural products. If the strawberries cost too much, most people will just not be able to afford strawberries and thus will just not buy them but instead buy less labour-intensive produce instead.
One could argue that if strawberries cannot be produced in a way that earns everyone involved a living wage then we shouldn’t produce strawberries, and that’s a totally valid point to argue.
It’s also fair to argue that we need to cut out capitalism’s inherent inefficiency of having to feed the capitalists in the process who did contributed nothing in terms of labour. But on the one hand, this hasn’t worked out that great in the past and on the other hand this would require more of a change than to just kick out migrants.
What would be more likely to happen (since we’ve seen it happen during Covid already) is that the wages will go up, but the locals still won’t do the work, thus strawberries will rot on the fields, the shelves will be empty, the prices will go up, but not enough to cover the losses for the farmers and the farmers will plant something less labour-intense next season.
(Wages would have to go way, way up before people will voluntarily quit their job in an AC’d office to work on a field.)
you can’t have competitive wages on a free market as long as somebody else is willing to do it for less. That’s why migrant labor would have to end first.
Didn’t we try that here after Brexit? From what I remember, farmers were having to let crops go to waste because Brits didn’t want the jobs, even after wages were raised. Most farm work is seasonal, people don’t really want that instability.
Edit: https://foodwastestories.com/2021/10/09/120000-pigs-culled/
https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/lack-of-workers-lfood-to-rot-in-fields-cost-of-living-crisis_uk_62fa7fb3e4b071ea9589136d
https://www.fruitnet.com/fresh-produce-journal/higher-wages-fail-to-halt-labour-crisis/185817.article
They had to bring in special visas, because no one else wanted the jobs.
Tbh, I’m not convinced that this would really happen. There’s not that much price elasticity to a lot of agricultural products. If the strawberries cost too much, most people will just not be able to afford strawberries and thus will just not buy them but instead buy less labour-intensive produce instead.
One could argue that if strawberries cannot be produced in a way that earns everyone involved a living wage then we shouldn’t produce strawberries, and that’s a totally valid point to argue.
It’s also fair to argue that we need to cut out capitalism’s inherent inefficiency of having to feed the capitalists in the process who did contributed nothing in terms of labour. But on the one hand, this hasn’t worked out that great in the past and on the other hand this would require more of a change than to just kick out migrants.
What would be more likely to happen (since we’ve seen it happen during Covid already) is that the wages will go up, but the locals still won’t do the work, thus strawberries will rot on the fields, the shelves will be empty, the prices will go up, but not enough to cover the losses for the farmers and the farmers will plant something less labour-intense next season.
(Wages would have to go way, way up before people will voluntarily quit their job in an AC’d office to work on a field.)