America's Farmers Don't Depend on Illegal Immigration

Liberals frame the debate over illegal immigration as a dilemma: either America grants amnesty to aliens or the economy will collapse.  Some even imply that Americans will starve to death because of higher food prices – who will pick America's fruits and veggies if not illegals? Bruce Goldstein, president of a nonprofit called Farmworker Justice, boldly claims that if we were to deport all illegal aliens, "our agricultural system would collapse."  Collapse.

This is nonsense.  American agriculture will not collapse without illegal labor.  Why?  Because there are plenty of technological solutions and American workers available to pick up the slack.  It is time to put this myth to bed.

Agriculture is not a labor-intensive industry, and it has not been for decades.  Less than 2 percent of Americans work in agriculture, according to the World Bank.  This figure has declined since 1960, when roughly 6 percent of Americans worked on farms.  If trends continue, we can expect the number to continue to fall.  This is because of the wonders of mechanization: machines now do everything from threshing wheat to milking cows.  The bottom line: Most farmers do not "benefit" from cheap illegal labor, since their labor costs are minimal to begin with. 

The "exceptions" to this rule are fruit and nut farms, located primarily in California.  Crops like raspberries and almonds are notoriously difficult for machines to pick.  There are many reasons for this, including the fact that berries require a "soft touch" – they ripen at different times, and bushes are tough for machinery to navigate.  These labor-intensive farms are the main agricultural culprits when it comes to hiring illegal workers.  After all, they have the most to gain. But realistically, even labor-intensive agriculture does not depend upon illegal labor.  

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