By Joel Lidstrom
Caledonia MN
An interesting document published by President Trump’s U.S. Department of Labor (“Adverse Effect Wage Rate Methodology for the Temporary Employment of H-2A Nonimmigrants in Non-Range Occupations in the United States”) cautions that there is now “the risk of supply shock-induced food shortages” in the United States. It warns that “The near total cessation of the inflow of illegal aliens, combined with the lack of an available legal workforce, results in significant disruptions to production costs and [threatens] the stability of domestic food production and prices for U.S consumers. Unless the Department acts immediately … this threat will grow as … enforcement of the nation’s immigration laws [is] deployed.”
What does this mean? It means that the deportation of illegal immigrants who do agricultural work in the U.S. threatens our food supply and will, without an immediate correction, cause food prices to increase and supply to diminish.
Any escalation in food cost and diminishment of supply will mean less income for our agriculture sector. Add to that tariffs that have triggered punitive duties placed against our agricultural exports, and we face rising food costs even as our farmers’ opportunities to sell their crops shrink. It is a lose-lose scenario that is inflicting harm on our farmers, our economy, and our standing in the world.
President Trump’s “act now, think later” immigration and tariff policies are fraught with consequences. For decades, farm labor has relied on an undocumented, mobile immigrant workforce that could easily accommodate various growing seasons, adjust quickly to shifting and often unexpected labor demands, and provide great expertise while expecting a modest wage. At the same time our farmers, in longstanding partnership with Republican and Democratic leadership, have worked to create and sustain global export markets. Now both have been damaged.
Without swift action from Congress that clears the way for a reliable influx of immigrant workers, agricultural employers will be unable to maintain operations, and the nation’s food supply will become less bountiful and more expensive. And lacking a retreat from our President’s tariff-mongering, with a restored commitment to cooperative trade with countries around the world, farm income will become even more tenuous. As a hungry world grows hungrier, we Americans may find ourselves out of step with international cooperative trade as we struggle to produce food sufficient only unto ourselves.
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