New Mexico Onions/Migrant workers
Posted by Pete | Posted in News | Posted on 30-06-2010
8
According to this morning paper, the Albuquerque Journal June 30, 2010, a good portion of our onion crop this year is destined for Canada…California onions are in short supply for some reason so the Canadians are using New Mexico onions. Down the Rio Grande River Valley, from north of Hatch to Las Cruces, there are plenty of chilies and onions. I-25 south bound allows one a good view of the valley floor and the beautiful crops growing down the valley. This year, something like 150 truck loads have headed to Canada. I think most of the workers are migrant workers….The farmer needs them…America needs them…They are good hard workers and very few Americans want to do the harvesting, so having them is almost, maybe completely, necessary for the famers to plant, tend and harvest our crops. I suppose we present double talk when addressing the illegal immigrants…On the one hand it seems we are saying to them, “come on over we need you” and on the other, “don’t you dare come over unless you have a green card”….It is certainly a delemma for the farmer if he does not have workers, it is a delemma for the government providing for sufficent welfare for the migrant families, it is a dilemma for the Border Patrol and National Guard protecting our borders with farm workers slipping across, since the farm worker is not the only ones coming over. Ammesty is not the answer…More offices allowing green card workers across and then the green card holders having easy access to the offices to allow for green card extentions seems to me to be the answer.We could put offices in the small communities of Columbus, Antelope Wells, New Mexico and Naco and Nogales, Arizona and many other small locations where the rush of people would not be overpowering….We do need the workers….We do need LEGAL WORKERS…..We DO NOT need 12 million new citizen all at once being dumped on a ALREADY UNSTABLE ECOMONY….President Obama, I don’t have the answer, but Sir, if you don’t have the answer, you are gonna have to come up with something pretty quick…..Good job on the onions boys….New Mexico thanks you…..I thank you….Pete Hester
Do we really need the workers? Farmers just want to get their crops to market while there is a market and before it spoils. They don’t care who does it. The headline in the Arkansas Democrat Gazette this morning is that obesity in Arkansas has hit 30.8%. I understand the obesity in Mississippi is 31.7%. That is very nearly one-third of the entire population. This obesity is not from over eating. It is from under working. It seems to me that America needs to go back to work. It seems to me that America needs to stop driving a mouse around a 6″ x 6″ pad and writing blogs like this one (along with its replies) and shoving them out into cyberspace for other obese people to read. I say let the illegals come the legal way. Let them reguire up to 50 years to complete the process for them and their families because it is (or should be) a long term move that will last for generations. Using New Mexico farmers need for cheap labor is just another excuse to keep the illegals coming. It is just another excuse to keep the price of onions and chickens low and to keep people in poverty.
I remember those chilies and onions growing in the Rio Grande valley. I remember seeing them from the high vantage point of my bicycle as I cycled througn and around Belen and the area in the valley south of Albuquerque. It was a refreshing sight for an Alabama boy to see something growing for a change other than mesquite and tumbleweed. I wasn’t obese. That bicycle gobbled up every calorie of every donut I could get my hands on, and then it gobbled up a good portion of the taxpayers’ money in the mess hall at Kirtland after I returned. All the good people of Arkansas and Mississippi need is to get out in the hot sun and do some work for a change, whether it is riding a bike over this beautiful land of ours or gathering onions and chili peppers (silli pepper) in New Mexico. Again, let the illegals come legally and let them take upward of 50 years to do so because, in that way, we will know that they are really serious about coming.
The farmers depend on the crops for their payday. Someone has to harvest and prepare the crop for shipment. It cannot wait as to do so will ruin the crop. What Americans should do, could do and will do is a completely different story. Preaching won’t change anything…I will stay with the mouse, thank you, and I love being fat…so, we are back to square one, huh?…
You’re not obese. The last time I saw you, you were only slightly overweight, meaning very well fed. Obesity is much more than that. It is carrying wellfedness to its ultimate extreme. It is primarily caused by laziness and a conviction of doing nothing, not by overeating.
Yes, farmers need their crops for a payday, but the obese people of Mississippi, Arkansas, and other states currently depend on the Federal Government (the U.S. taxpayer) for their payday of food stamps. It is time that these food stamps were terminated (except for those few who are genuinely disabled and in need), and it is time that the recipients, whether obese or not, went back to work. Since the cotton farms of the Southeast and Southwest are pretty much automated, gathering the sili peppers and onions of New Mexico is a good place to begin.
Incidentally, preaching has set the world on fire. We just need more good preachers, not necessarily more Billy Sunday’s and Billy Grahams (though we need them too). We need more activists with ideas who are willing to get out and work, whether it is harvesting sili peppers or driving tractors or engineers and scientist who create new and better ones. Bring the immigrants on. Just let them come the legal, long term way with the education and talents that the country needs.
Preaching as I was using it was in regard to farm workers or lack thereof or getting people of welfare rolls and into the fields….Not the christian preacher, which we can use plenty more of…
Great article this is what we are trying hard to get legally. We have
Part of the answer but is hard to do due to the regulations by the
Department of Labor.
I would like to touch base with you on the subject.
Thanks
Jaime Campos / Farm Labor Contractor
Jaime, my e-mail is pete@hesterbooks.com and I would be happy to speak with you in this regard. However, for me it is the way I well but I am not sure how much weight I could carry…We do need to start. The farmers need the workers and most of us Americans will not do farm work..Thanks for you interest and comment. Pete Hester
Its like you read my mind! You appear to know so much about this, like you wrote the book in it or something. I think that you can do with some pics to drive the message home a little bit, but instead of that, this is excellent blog. A great read. I’ll certainly be back.