Even Unemployed Americans Won’t Take Work as Farmhands

Change.org has a fascinating piece that shows all those Americans who are talking about farming – whether buying from farmers markets, becoming members of CSAs, or building urban farms – aren’t ready to actually work on a farm. Not at current farm wages. Not even if they don’t have a job.

With all the glory we give to growing our own — getting our hands dirty, urban farming, rooftop gardens, and so on — it’s surprising that so few American citizens are actually employed as farm laborers.

As you’ll remember, comedian Stephen Colbert testified before Congress earlier this month to bring attention to the struggles of undocumented workers and even pretended to work on a farm for a day.

But comedy aside, there’s a serious debate in this country about whether employing immigrants — undocumented or otherwise — to do work farm work prevents Americans from taking those jobs.

Read the rest of the article here.

Photo credit: pondspider (Used under Creative Commons license.)