r/LeopardsAteMyFarm • • 6h ago

so MAGA farmers chased off immigrant farmworkers because Trump said they were taking American jobs, now they can’t find anyone to pick their crops. Funny how the pick-yourselves-up-by-the-bootstraps crowd suddenly needs someone else to do the work

9.0k Upvotes

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369

u/Ok_Pianist8712 6h ago

Good food going to waste I was taught by my parents that, that was a sin. In this day and age with the economy and wars, it really is.

162

u/isaiddgooddaysir 6h ago

I can’t believe that these idiots believed that African Americans would be flocking to their farms to pick their crops for slave wages.

94

u/West-Discussion7257 5h ago

They are MAGA “make America great again”, they didn’t say when America was at its greatest, to them that may very well be when slavery was legal.

43

u/tyler98786 5h ago

I'm pretty sure for most of them it was the 1800s

37

u/corvettee01 3h ago

They've asked Trump supporters before and they usually say "Uhhhhhh, I don't know, the 50's or 60's."

They have no fucking clue what they actually want, they just needed an excuse to be racist.

3

u/mitchENM 2h ago

The 1850s

10

u/Southern-March1522 4h ago

The last time America was great was sometime around 4000bc.

2

u/Knubinator 2h ago

An argument could be made for around 1100CE.

1

u/Certain_Photograph29 2h ago

maybe in 1491???

9

u/Roflmancer 4h ago

It's time to finish what general Sherman started!

4

u/External_Music_3927 1h ago

I do believe the current administration would have no problems with slavery. Trump will do anything to avoid paying his workers and stiffs them all the time. He’s notorious for paying as little as possible, if he actually pays them. Slavery would not be such a stretch of the imagination.

3

u/veryfungibletoken 4h ago

That's 100% it.

3

u/Senior_Torte519 2h ago

I'd say about 1152 A.D. was a peak year for America.

55

u/beefncheddar1 5h ago

They’ll just incarcerate more African Americans and use the prisoners as farm labor.

36

u/PowerDump_69 5h ago

Let's see how motivated the prisoners are to make every possible bushel by the pound the way migrant workers were, and how many are available, the farmers are fucked and they did it to themselves.

22

u/flip69 5h ago

Correction they did it to the entire nation.
We’re all in this lifeboat together and what they and every other red hat has done is done to us all.

13

u/Soggy-Beach1403 4h ago

To the entire world. In the long run, third-world nations will have massive starvation and hunger. Republican voters will masturbate to images of that and continue to support the GOP.

8

u/flip69 1h ago

Anyone that does that lacks empathy for their fellow human being.. that’s how atrocities happen.

2

u/yellowcloak 18m ago

One slight thing Trump has done kinda...sorta...right was to open up more food imports. If my office labor has to compete with foreign workers, why can't a cowboy's?

2

u/Waiting4Reccession 2h ago

Will be another bailout coming especially with elections on the horizon.

These guys should be losijg their farms and we should have nationalized farms decades ago instead of nonstop bailouts and subsidies. Probably cheaper by now.

21

u/Comet_Cowboys 5h ago

This is how we got diahrea lettuce.

18

u/Mastiiffmom 4h ago

That came from GOP regulation slashing. It used to be a requirement to provide Satellite portable toilets and wash stations for farm workers. Not anymore. Just shit on the lettuce & don’t bother washing your hands. We’re good.

2

u/MsMarvelsProstate 54m ago

Nah that doesn't get people sick to this scale. Regulations were relaxed so far that farms are watering crops with water that just barely doesn't qualify as sewage water.

5

u/sparklynugz 5h ago

where do you think anybody out there shits?

2

u/VegetableMethod624 2h ago

Back in the day…right there in the field.

2

u/MistakesTasteGreat 4h ago

If we want to eat their lettuce

The bowels is where they'll get us

Diarrhea. Diarrhea.

2

u/CaptainDildobrain 1h ago

"That just sounds like slavery with extra steps!"

2

u/Successful-Doubt5478 26m ago

First you will pay through your nose for food.. Some of you will starve.

Some farmers will go bankrupt and give away their land.

I am guessing the slave labour shows up when the new landowners are set up.

I hear Vance invested in one of those companies a year or so ago.

36

u/SaltyYumYumBalls 5h ago

Eff, that. I didn't get two degrees and a bunch of certs to make less than $150k and have to work outside. My chocolate brown ass is an indoor black man.

4

u/External_Music_3927 1h ago

I have two masters in education and have never made more than $42,000 after 23 years of teaching.
That was some time ago, but I hope you can see that $150k sounds like a lot to me.

1

u/yellowcloak 17m ago

Christ, I was making about 42k barely outside my internship a decade ago dude...

2

u/Quiet_Jury5188 3h ago

Same but a single degree but multiple certs.

What certs do you have?

6

u/plaxitone 2h ago

Peppermint and spearmint.

1

u/qqererer 1h ago

If picking crops paid $150k, would you get two degrees and a bunch of certs to not pick crops?

30

u/Rinzy2000 5h ago

Living in the south, I can believe it. Lol. They would gladly bring back slavery immediately if it were legalized.

It’s just funny to me that we told them it wasn’t gonna happen for under $20/hr and they didn’t believe us.

24

u/TwinkieDad 5h ago

$20/hr is literally fast food minimum wage in California. No one with legal status is going out in the Central Valley to pick for a measly $20/hr when they could work at Subway instead. And remember, CA is the number one agriculture state in the country.

2

u/Glum_Base_9112 28m ago

and that is why the state is blocking ice as much as it can but these maga farmers against the democratic governor protecting their interest. what was that saying about the tree and the axe?

12

u/Karenandfran 3h ago

You nailed it!

5

u/FeliusSeptimus 3h ago

They would gladly bring back slavery immediately if it were legalized.

It is legal, just have to convict them of something first.

2

u/Rinzy2000 1h ago

Big fact. The prison industrial complex and its use of slave labor is a subject that we could discuss for days. Especially with the government privatizing prisons. This country is shameful.

5

u/PsychologicalWear846 3h ago

According to FOX News teenagers are supposed to pick vegetables during summer break. Who's going to pick the spring and summer harvests? Who's going to pick the winter harvest like citruses, lettuce, broccoli, etc.? They're completely detached from reality.

1

u/wholewheatscythe 2m ago

Are these teenagers from the same parents who won’t let their kids play outside on their own? Suddenly those same kids will be sent to a farm to pick crops? Lol.

Naturally, they expect someone else’s kids would be doing the work, not their precious kids.

4

u/GpaSags 3h ago

https://giphy.com/gifs/3oz8xTl6sGKbuRPDDW

"When you was slaves, you sang like birds!"

3

u/MuckRaker83 5h ago

They believe it is the "natural order of things" so of course they did

3

u/dr150 4h ago

Fruits and vegetable doesn't affect MAGA. They know what they're doing with their 5D Chess......They eat chips and pasta for their nutrition.

2

u/Equal_Refuse_4591 4h ago

They believe whatever their right wing propaganda source of choice tells them, like good little bootlickers

2

u/rocketblue11 4h ago

No joke, I’m sure this is what Trump means when he refers to, “black jobs.”

2

u/PorchFolder 4h ago

Seeing crops rot in the fields because of political games seems like utter madness. The economic consequences of such decisions always hit ordinary people the hardest. Relying on cheap labor without a real plan was the height of foolishness.

2

u/Blue_Moon_Lake 2h ago

It's fine, they'll just learn that they have to raise the wages.

And food will return to the prices it should have rather than something cheap that people don't think much of when they waste it.

1

u/Independent-Hurry618 5h ago

I'm sorry - what? Where was this said?

1

u/ShockOld4312 4h ago

That will be their next step. They will take away regular working rights from certain groups and force them onto their farms, making them work for pennies or even nothing at all.

1

u/IThinkItsAverage 4h ago

Really? I can believe it. In fact, I’m waiting for them to try and revoke the civil rights act so they can go back to slavery. At this point us Americans need a kick in the ass to finally get up and do something about this.

1

u/Boaerotica 2h ago

I know right?? Crazy 😂🤦🏾‍♂️

1

u/mobydog 1h ago

I think someone told them that they were going to force all the slacking Medicaid recipients (of which there are virtually none) to get jobs and this kind of shitty work would be right in line for those workers.

1

u/Dapper-Two-3072 46m ago

We’re working real jobs, we are not a part of this equation, that’s why immigrants were doing it. MAGA was complaining about jobs they should go in the fields.

104

u/Quantum3ntaglement 6h ago edited 5h ago

We often pay our farmers to throw away food so they can get higher prices for their crops. Welfare queens. https://www.ams.usda.gov/content/usda-establishes-free-and-restricted-percentages-tart-cherries-2023-24-crop-year

17

u/Few_Breadfruit0 6h ago

*higher

4

u/dockellis24 6h ago

Raise??

0

u/th3rdnutt 4h ago

Believe it or not, food prices in the US are some of the lowest in the world as a percentage of income. Somewhere below 7%.

1

u/jeremiahthedamned 1h ago

these low prices are keeping millions of americans from starving to death!

1

u/12D1 3h ago

its called agriculture subsidies. you get paid X per ton or pallet or w.e but anything over x and you make x-y, the more over X you are the bigger Y gets. But there's also a base-minimum. I knew, well my family knew, farmers growing up. Around harvest season(s) they would drop off pallets of corn or strawberries or w/e they had grown in excess. We'd then leave sell it for the LOW at our grocery store. im talking 10 ears of corn for a dollar low or free even if someone wanted just a few.

1

u/breaducate 3h ago

throw away food so they can get higher prices for their crops.

That's just something they do under capitalism, regardless of policy.

Amazon has entire warehouses dedicated to the arbitrary destruction of goods for the same reason.

2

u/frequenZphaZe 2h ago

people really dont appreciate the truly incredible amount of waste and discarded product our economic organization creates, food and otherwise. the farm in the OP will probably get paid to cover their losses, just like when trump bailed out farmers in his first term. they wont learn anything. the whole system is designed to forgive, and sometimes reward, waste

1

u/RedditIsOverMan 1h ago

What?  That doesn't make any sense.  Limiting output makes sense for producers, but not middlemen like amazon

2

u/breaducate 1h ago

What we naively think of as making sense doesn't always line up with capital's interests.

1

u/RedditIsOverMan 1h ago

Oh, but this is a totally different thing and makes fiscal sense.  They don't destroy things to raise the value of the remaining stock.  They destroy things because it's cheaper than restocking it.

1

u/breaducate 51m ago

Arbitrary destruction of useful goods because it makes the capitalist more money this way is different from arbitrary destruction of useful goods because it makes the capitalist more money this way.

This isn't even would you rather be shot or stabbed, it's would you rather die by artillery strike or bomber.

1

u/b0tbuilder 6h ago

Do you know any small business owners who don’t cheat the IRS. In my entire life, I have only known 1.

2

u/I_Got_Ur_Number_8675 4h ago

Had a boss who kept everything on paper reciepts, separate pad for cash. He'd burn them at the end of every day

2

u/b0tbuilder 1h ago

Unsurprising

0

u/PmMeUrTinyAsianTits 5h ago

Like, yes, but also no, and we really shouldn't start to demonize the idea of food stability and preparedness just because it's fun to bash on farmers.

Having an excess of food production is basic preparation for disaster and unexpected hard times. Protecting from some type of national food disaster is not something an individual can really do. That is why it is the governments job to do that. We should absolutely be reviewing how this is being done, as it's clear corruption has tainted our system top to bottom, but we should not act like the idea of government subsidies for food to make sure we have an excess supply is a bad idea or policy. Food security is one of the most basic jobs of government.

Getting rid of food subsidies because we don't need the food now would be like getting rid of a pandemic team, because you're not currently in a pandemic. It's how you get egg on your face in the form of thousands of dead people.

I have absolutely no sympathy for these farmers. I just don't want to throw the baby out with the bathwater.

1

u/Quantum3ntaglement 4h ago

Agreed. I'm not suggesting that the welfare queens lose their meal ticket. I just want them to acknowledge that they are welfare queens in the hopes that they will show some grace towards those of the working class who may also require government assistance.

But they probably won't.

23

u/theskippyraccoon 5h ago

Instead of letting in go to waste while occupying their time with sob stories on tik tok they could TRY to recoup some losses by offering a discounted rate for locals to pick their own produce and charge a reasonable price per pound.

There are orchards and berry farms who offer this as a novel, country-esque touristy experience in some areas. Hell! Some vineyards in Europe used to do the same.

These people aren't capable of thinking outside of the box and doing anything that could possibly garner real sympathy or change the minds of the public at this time.

15

u/flip69 5h ago edited 4h ago

Oh you think that big farms are close to residential areas?

They are not close to metropolitan areas where people need the fruit. The nearest farm will take me far too much in gas EVEN IF I HAD THE TIME TO SPARE to pick fruit.

Those locals to the farm will have sauce till next year.

The rest of us are screwed
You’re dreaming and I don’t want to go back to the 1930’s with the migrant mother and her 3 children starving in a tent.
So much for the failed economist Peter Navarro and his insane economic trade policies I hate the fact that he was from here like so many other GOP / trump crazies.
.

6

u/Pineapplepizzaracoon 3h ago

Also they would need to be in a tourism path or have something desirable.

No one is getting excited to go pull low quality mass farmed tomatoes.

Truffle hunting or picking a basket of apples in a quaint little country village is novel. Photo ops in canola or sunflower sure.

3

u/qqererer 1h ago

Google maps doesn't even begin to show how far away and in the middle of nowhere a majority of these fields are.

They're typically far far away from major highways and pock marked by tiny tiny towns where farmers live.

You almost have to zoom in to max level before you see any resemblance of a neighborhood, or small town if you're lucky.

2

u/OkNeighborhood5060 5h ago

Most of what they'd offer are corn and soybeans specially bred to feed livestock.

1

u/asmodeanreborn 5h ago

Migrant works aren't hired to pick corn and soybeans by hand, though.

1

u/Ancient-Afternoon374 44m ago

They 100% pick corn where i live. It's all sweet corn tho not field corn for feed.

1

u/asmodeanreborn 39m ago

Yeah, sweet corn is different and would be the type humans who want to eat might be interested in picking as a touristy thing (where I grew up, this is common for strawberries and sometimes even potatoes). The comment I responded to was talking about the livestock feed type of corn and soybeans.

2

u/Corfiz74 4h ago

That's what I was thinking! That's what some German asparagus farmers did when the migrant workers couldn't come during the pandemic. Some even kept a few fields for that, since it became quite popular.

2

u/DancesWithInkPens 4h ago

40 acres of potatoes next to 100 acres of potatoes. Ain't gettin' in the car for that.

2

u/Consistent-Fig7484 4h ago

This works for California and Oregon vineyards or apple orchards in Washington. People aren’t taking vacations to buttfuck Oklahoma to pick feed corn.

2

u/MangoCats 4h ago

U-pick only goes so far, at some point it's not worth it for people to drive that far to pick the food even if it was free. Price of gas isn't helping this equation.

2

u/I_divided_by_0- 4h ago

Maybe this is the pestilence the bible speaks of?

2

u/External_Music_3927 1h ago

Farmers were big supporters of Trump during the election. I don’t wish them ill by any means, but I bet they have changed their tunes. It’s tragic that farmers lost the value of their crops, that jobs that could be filled, weren’t. And the food was wasted.

5

u/CleeAuth 6h ago

It goes back into the ground and just recycles until someone picks the fruit.

12

u/Dzov 6h ago

Pretty sure they plow all that under.

13

u/i_got_grace 6h ago

that's how seeds work.

27

u/ryancementhead 6h ago

If it’s seeds bought from Monsanto or other companies, they can’t replant from the seeds of the crop or they’ll get sued. They have to buy new seeds from the company. There’s copyrights and patents on the seeds.

13

u/DefunctInTheFunk 6h ago

They just won't grow. They're geneticly modified.

7

u/Boeing367-80 6h ago

Even if they do grow, the plants are hybrids and seeds unlikely to be true copies of the parent plantm

3

u/SasquatchWasShaved 6h ago

And then if they do somehow grow something, Monsanto comes and shoots your entire family before crucifying your dog.

1

u/Apothecary_85 6h ago

I think it’s the other way around….

1

u/pr0ach 6h ago

They're real connoisseurs of flaying. They make the children watch.

1

u/HEX_BootyBootyBooty 2h ago

That doesn't change the facts. Monsanto is saying "fuck your food, pay me* and equivocating plays into their PR scheme. Did you get paid to lie? Or did you do it for free?

1

u/DefunctInTheFunk 1h ago

I far as I know there is no threat of a lawsuit because the seeds are modified to yield food that doesn't have viable seeds. That's all I was saying. Didn't know I lied. I don't disagree with your statement though. I'm not for Monsanto. Stop acting like I'm a shil lol I literally said 2 sentences.

1

u/HEX_BootyBootyBooty 1h ago

Can seeds be trademarked?

1

u/DefunctInTheFunk 1h ago

I'm not sure why you're asking. But as far as I know, no.

Edit: I suppose it depends on how you mean.

9

u/Gorgethalamus 6h ago

Most of them have a terminator gene in the seed anyway. Unable to reproduce.

3

u/i_got_grace 6h ago

it won't do much good if they're out of business, will it? 😢

4

u/Infinite_Plenty101 6h ago

Are we talking about the farmers? Or monosanto? Because big Ag will always prop up Bayer Pharma

1

u/i_got_grace 6h ago

the farmers, of course.

1

u/Wow_Many_Tomato_WMT 5h ago

It won’t and good riddance these maga farmers. There be a lot less crying about diesel and getting a bailout and how much they have to pay workers.

1

u/MangoCats 4h ago

Then it's the next sucker's problem.

7

u/ToughDisplay1255 6h ago

But don't seeds crave Brawndo?

https://giphy.com/gifs/l3vRaak6fltTSi6xW

2

u/i_got_grace 6h ago

Brawndo makes the vegetables pick themselves!

1

u/FungusGnatHater 5h ago

No it isn't. You can't just let tomatoes rot on the ground to get a good crop next year.

1

u/Pillow3971 5h ago

It's "seedless"

1

u/J-Love-McLuvin 6h ago

You say tomato, I say tomato. Tomato, tomato, tomato, tomato.

1

u/cortesoft 2h ago

“Plowing under” is what “recycling” is. The fruit and plants left behind are what fertilize the next crop.

1

u/Nigel_melish01 6h ago

So you’re saying it ok then?

1

u/barrosoOso 6h ago

In modern farming, I don't know that this is true. Generally speaking most farmers buy seed from large multi national conglomerates that have an EULA attached to using their product. One of the first clauses in these contracts is that it is illegal for a farmer to use the seeds from the company's product to replant their fields.

1

u/Free-Pound-6139 4h ago

Good food going to waste I was taught by my parents that, that was a sin.

What the fuck is this comment. Who cars if it is a sin. It is very bad for the farmer, and bad for driving up inflation.

1

u/Senior_Torte519 2h ago

Technically, the animals feed on it, the microbes of the Earth feed and recycle the nutrients. So really, the food isnt going to waste unless you anthropocentric ass parents just care about you humies.

1

u/jeremiahthedamned 1h ago

mortal sin of avarice

1

u/whatisittodo 19m ago

Sin after Epstein / Trump it's like not really a big deal.