63
Farms are closing without workers. US border policy threatens to empty shelves. | Opinion
(www.courier-journal.com)
this post was submitted on 06 Oct 2025
63 points (100.0% liked)
politics
23014 readers
199 users here now
Protests, dual power, and even electoralism.
Labour and union posts go to The Labour Community.
Take any slop posts to the slop trough
Main is good for shitposting.
Do not post direct links to reactionary sites.
Off topic posts will be removed.
Follow the Hexbear Code of Conduct and remember we're all comrades here.
founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Mulch does grow on trees, it is trees. Fertilizer and herbicides mostly get used on annual crops.
I would estimate that the picking labor is close to ½ of all the production labor for apples, though. Source: I worked on an apple orchard once.
At a conservative picking estimate from the article of 10,000 pounds a day, or $5000 of product realized at the end of production, we would have maybe $2000 in property tax and vehicle operating costs and pesticides combined, then 12 labor hours that went into planting, straightening, weed-eating, deploying pesticides on, and pruning the apple trees for the 8 hours it took to pick them clean. It's still 20 labor hours for $3000 of product.
But 12k pounds a day is insane. IIRC it was a good day if I managed 1000 pounds an hour.