• in this article, a plantation owner laments how their production system’s dependence on imperialism, mass drudgery, and artificially cheap labor is being threatened by overly aggressive white nationalism as the boomerang of oppression collides with their fiefdom.

    Finding enough people to fill positions on U.S. farms is nearly impossible. I try to hire domestic employees from the community, but the reality is farm work is physically demanding and requires long hours. Americans clearly don’t want farm jobs, or they’re looking for a job that lasts longer than a season. On the rare occasion they do apply, few decide it’s the right fit for them and most resign quickly.

    just spitballing, but i wonder if what’s impossible is to equitably fill the labor needs of production system centering the ownership and control a single family running a massive monoculture relying entirely on a seasonal, transient workforce.

    • huf [he/him]@hexbear.net
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      9 days ago

      or they’re looking for a job that lasts longer than a season.

      what insane expectations these fat americans have, to have a stable job so you can uh… live. it’s clearly the immigration policy that’s the problem here.

    • Runcible [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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      9 days ago

      just reading your quoted line and parsing it as “Americans clearly don’t want jobs that destroy their bodies but also offer no security”. Wild, right?

    • nothx [he/him]@hexbear.net
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      9 days ago

      just spitballing, but i wonder if what’s impossible is to equitably fill the labor needs of production system centering the ownership and control a single family running a massive monoculture relying entirely on a seasonal, transient workforce.

      Yeah, maybe a coop ownership or something crazy like that would work… Also tho, how would the family whose owned it for generations be able to put themselves in a pedestal if they can’t claim they are the sole creator of jobs and corn for the region?

    • D61 [any]@hexbear.net
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      9 days ago

      just spitballing, but i wonder if what’s impossible is to equitably fill the labor needs of production system centering the ownership and control a single family running a massive monoculture relying entirely on a seasonal, transient workforce.

      Straight up communal situation is the only wayt that makes sense to me. The orchards are owned collectively and the community gets together during harvest season to do the work. The harvest is sold and the revenue goes to the community’s coffers to pay for things like community housing or the community grocery store to subsidize costs and keep retail prices low to zero.

      In situations where the local community can’t get enough labor together is where it might become a problem. Are there other communities with orchards that can spare their people to come help or is there a way to ethically maintain an itenerant work force to fill the gaps? National Guard or military Reserves being activated to be workers would be chefs-kiss

      • came_apart_at_Kmart [he/him, comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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        9 days ago

        for sure. treat it as a communal resource and then re-orient the production system towards the labor capacity and desires of the community. that probably is going to involve diversifying the land use to distribute the labor needs of harvest/post-harvest processing more broadly throughout the year instead of spiking it in the fall for the harvest of a single species of perennial. if the community wants to continue to “corner the [nearby] market” for apples and apple products, they will have to summon the effort within themselves.

        otherwise, its time to start transitioning infrastructure and production areas into things like maybe strawberries/honey (summer), early greens (late spring), and maple tapping (winter).

        the cultural logic of monoculture plantations is an anathema to community food systems/labor provisioning as much as it to ecological resilience. people who want to hang onto them will find themselves defending heinous practices out of “necessity”.