"Nobody to pick them"... Florida farmers plow their tomatoes under. [View all]
As the Trump administration proceeds with mass deportations of undocumented migrants, there are far fewer pickers in the fields, and crops are left to go bad.
One spoke to WSVN-Miami about fellow migrants leaving Florida each day. He spoke on condition of anonymity, concerned he might be deported himself. "A lot of people are really afraid, and sometimes they come, sometimes they don’t come,” he said. “And the harvest is lost because it cannot be harvested.”
The labor shortage also means Florida farmers have to pay more for labor. At the same time, they’re getting less money for their produce due to Trump’s tariff policies.
“You can’t even afford to pick them right now,” said Heather Moehling, president of the Miami-Dade County Farm Bureau. “Between the cost of the labor and the inputs that goes in, it’s more cost-effective for the farmers to just plow them right now.”
https://moneywise.com/news/economy/florida-farmers-now-plowing-over-perfectly-good-tomatoes-as-trumps-tariff-policies-cause-prices-to-plummet
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