The reason is simple: an increase in immigration enforcement, including high-profile ICE raids, shook Texas farm workers to their core. The news filtered fast that workers—regardless of legal status—chose safety over a salary.

Farmers, who had been working with their crews for decades, described the loss as “devastating” and “unprecedented.” This is alarming as most farms are founded upon immigrant labor, both legal and illegal, creating a domino effect for the food system as a whole.

. . . When farm workers vanish, the effects are felt far beyond the fields. Livestock is untended, crops go unpicked, food production declines, and food prices dramatically increase. In Texas alone, where specialty vegetables and fruits must be hand-picked, worker shortages jeopardize entire harvest seasons.

This results in fewer foods on grocery store shelves, higher prices for families nationwide, and a greater reliance on imports. Threads on Reddit and YouTube are already predicting price hikes and empty produce shelves.

  • some_guy@lemmy.sdf.org
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    3 hours ago

    It’s too bad that I don’t give a fuck about farmers who voted to arrest their workforce. Put on a cowboy hat and harvest your produce yourself. This is what you wanted.

    If you didn’t notice, I also hate cowboys.

  • rekabis@lemmy.ca
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    9 hours ago

    They voted for this.

    Let them figure it out.

    If you own property, start a garden. You’re likely going to need it.

  • halferect@lemmy.world
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    11 hours ago

    I’m sure there are plenty of Republicans willing to take a job for shit pay that is back breaking and dangerous right?

      • halferect@lemmy.world
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        11 hours ago

        It really is wonderful, I could only wish to have the government give me my dream job, and these Republicans just get handed a golden opportunity, it’s like Charlie and the golden ticket, I will go down and congrat them on the big winnings and bestest deals while they are knee deep in pig shit

    • IAmNorRealTakeYourMeds@lemmy.world
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      28 minutes ago

      why use prisoners? they are detaining countless immigrants, they might put them on forced labour.

      so Immigrants will have to work the fields for no pay.

  • N0t_5ure@lemmy.world
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    15 hours ago

    I wonder how many of these farmers in Texas voted for Trump? My guess is the majority of them. You reap what you sow.

  • PhilipTheBucket@ponder.cat
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    17 hours ago

    Phase 2: Prison labor

    It also carries the side “benefit” of getting farm owners (and, indirectly, anyone who cares about being able to eat food) complicit in and supportive of the “person who didn’t do anything wrong -> detention” pipeline as it ramps up and expands.

    You heard it here first.

    • Aceticon@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      3 hours ago

      Even “better”, only people with the right connections will have access to this slave labour, so only very wealthy or very Fascist farmers will get their harvests harvested.

      Win, win, win for Fascism in the US.

    • fartographer@lemmy.world
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      15 hours ago

      No, that’s phase 3. Phase 2 is foreclosures, bankruptcy, and buying at insanely discounted rates. THEN it’s slaveprison labor.

      • rumba@lemmy.zip
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        10 hours ago

        You’re still off by 1, before you can have prison labor they’re going to have to make disagreeing with the government punishable by forced labor. Then they’re going to farm all of the social media and lock everyone up.

    • ragepaw@lemmy.ca
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      17 hours ago

      I have been predicting the return of slavery wide scale via prisoners for years.

    • Agent641@lemmy.world
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      15 hours ago

      Phase 3: Expansion of laws to criminalise any vauge behaviour the govt decides is unacceptable.

      When everyone is guilty, you can extort the funded class to look the other way and exploit the unfunded class by imprisonment and forced Labor. The legal system will be saturated by arrests for ‘disorderly conduct’, ‘resistimg arrest’ and ‘anti-governmemt activities’ faster than the courts can keep up with tossing out bogus charges. If you have money,you post bail and try really hard to behave yourself and not rock the boat. If you don’t have money, it’s off to the work farms for you.

    • Lost_My_Mind@lemmy.world
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      15 hours ago

      Actually, I think I heard it first in the 1200s when Genghis Khan had similar concepts. He also would raze the village, kill the men and children, and rape the women…but give it time. Maybe that’s one of the provisions within “the big beautiful bill”. Maybe it’s coming next year.

      …I don’t know if I should indicate that I’m joking. It’s the kind of joke where you laugh, but also it’s a nervous laugh because you no longer feel safe in your own country, and it REALLY feels like we need a new modern civil war to take out the trash like we did 200 years ago.

    • Rimu@piefed.social
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      11 hours ago

      Disappointing to see such slop so heavily upvoted just because it fits what people want to see.

    • Optional@lemmy.worldOP
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      17 hours ago

      It really felt like it, but it has a human’s name on the byline, fwiw. And there were some “rounded corners” that made me think a person edited it a fair bit.

    • Lost_My_Mind@lemmy.world
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      15 hours ago

      Um…who’s “them” in this scenario? Because if the farms shut down, that means EVERYBODY starves. Can’t feed the public if there’s no food supply.

      • some_designer_dude@lemmy.world
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        15 hours ago

        My guess is “them” = Americans? This (for now) is largely a “them” problem and it’s unlikely anyone will really push back until most people lose their bread and / or circuses. It makes sense. Most people want to just “be” and live peacefully, and will avoid disruptions until they can’t.

        I hope they find a way to correct their government before things get to starvation though.

      • fodor@lemmy.zip
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        15 hours ago

        Do you think that the only food available in Texas is that which is grown in Texas?