I am not really sure where the illegals went because what I have seen this year is the same amount of construction workers, tree planters, farm workers restaurant /hotel staff and more that I have seen for years. They are foreign works which I assume have visas so my guess is that the majority of foreign workers in this country have visas. Were there illegal workers ? I would think less now than before but at least here it's not real evident there are many. Montana is a big state but we have a smaller population so it's pretty hard to hang if you are illegal and working where the public sees you.

Big is a relative term isn't it?

We have lots of apple/ peach/ plum orchards and vineyards in southeast PA. We also have farms that produce blueberries and strawberries as their primary crops. Also a few that produce large amounts of pumpkins.

Most of these places are around 100-200 acres. I don't know how that compares to your left coast farms but I'd guess farms are probably bigger in your area, maybe much bigger.

Many of the berry farms around here use "pick your own" tactics to harvest their crop. Customers are given pails and sent out into the fields to fill them. They are given a discounted price. It's a pretty big thing around here. The pumpkin producers do the same thing only they provide transportation via wagon rides to let customers pick the pumpkin(s) they want.

The orchard owner's use family and locally hired help, teenagers and older folks mostly. The vineyard folks do the same or use machines to harvest their grapes, been seeing more of that in recent years.

The point is, nobody is using illegal aliens to harvest their crops. It doesn't really matter the size of your operation. If you can't run the place without hiring illegal aliens then now is a good time to change tactics or get out.

Lugnut, every operation is different. We used to U Pick 5-6 acres of strawberries and have 100 cars out at a time. U pick (in our area) has mostly gone away. A brother of mine has 1 acre of u pick blues. He sometime only has 1 or 2 cars show up in a day! About half his crop is given away to gleaners since he can't get it picked.

I can tell you that dairies, nurseries (real big in Oregon), and small fruit farms have depended on migrant help for a long time now. Legal status is verified by most as is the law. Most migrants are paid not cash, but by check with withholding for taxes.

Are some of those that have their ID's, green cards, SS#'s not here legally? Probably. Not the farmers fault if they'r not counterfeit experts.

Your solution to just do something different is intriguing but that would just mean the food markets would have to buy their fruit from other countries where the fruit is also picked by latinos. We can't just live on crops that are machine harvested.

If your local farms can find help and get their crops in I say good deal!

BTW, never seen machine picked grapes. We have thousands upon thousands of acres of wine grapes in Oregon, but it is all hand picked.

I don't have any problem with farmers using LEGAL migrant workers, I don't think many folks would have a problem with that. It's the idea of folks that knowingly hiring illegals to do the work that most have a problem with. My suggestion to do something different applies to those folks. Stop knowingly hiring illegals and paying them cash under the table.

I like the idea of verification and paying legal migrant workers with checks and withholding taxes.

Machine harvesting of grapes is often done at night. Maybe that's why you've never seen one? Mechanical grape harvesters have been around since the 70's.

You can likely still make a much better finished product with hand picking. There are machines that can accurately sort grapes and other fruit, but they are often prohibitively expensive.

I have to pick more grapes, by hand, today. It's a bad year for grapes here this year.

Keith

I assume grapes in your area are juice grapes? In wine grape production out here it is all done by hand as far as I know. In Washington state they grow a lot of juice grapes they may be using machines for them there.

Pretty neat video Keith. The high end wine growers out here likely would not use these machines for fear of producing an inferior wine.

Most of the vineyards around here are producing grapes for wine. The majority are picking by hand but, as I said above, I’m seeing more that are using mechanical harvesters over the last five or six years.

I think maybe the high-end wineries want their grapes picked by hand.

Ha! You beat me to it as I was amending my post Lug.

The use of illegal aliens to harvest crops had been going on for years under multiple administrations and had become standard operating procedure. Everyone knew it but were willing to look the other way because it was mutually beneficial. The workers were making more than they could in their home country, farmers were getting by paying lower wages, and consumers were getting a more affordable product. Unfortunately when you start indescrimenant enforcement for desirable reasons you open the door for undesirables as well. Drug running, human trafficing, potential terrorism, etc. Previous administrations have talked about doing something about it, but Trump is the first one to take action to fix it.

Yes, illegals getting a lower wage, and cash, but that never seemed to lower any costs to the consumers, sounds good but it doesn't happen.

Disagree with the lower wage part. Much of picking is piece work. You get paid for how much you do. Since many or most of the migrants are much faster than us they earn pretty dang good money. Out here none work for less than $20 an hour. Or at least not for long...they'll move on to something better that does.