Feds Find Young Children Working Strawberry Farms – ABC News.
The above link points to an agonizing story at ABC about kids being brought with their parents to work in berry farms in Washington State.
Specifically the ABC reporters cheer on the Feds who bust farmers whose workers are bringing their kids with them to work.
Unmentioned is where the kids ought to be while both parents are picking berries in the summer. Perhaps these lefties are volunteering their own services to babysit?
There is journalistic hand wringing over the fact that farms are the most dangerous work situation, and proclamations that kids should not be exposed to such an environment.
Of course farms are dangerous. This is NOT news. A sarcastic person might mention that farms are a system of natural selection for humans which operates more effectively, with far fewer deaths than the abortion programs offered by the leftists.
Pharmer understands that the pretense of concern for children is for the purpose of obtaining more government control and allow consolidation of the small farms into something more easily overseen by our “rulers”.
If the reader has time to view the ABC video included in their story, a group of steady working kids will be seen, all of whom appear much more robust than the girl which the CWA Union worker stationed in front of a Verizon truck. (Natural selection, or just outdoor living?)
Complaints about lost schooling would have been moot up until the time of balanced calendars which hold kids inside all summer and prevent them from working on farms, or being freed to the outdoors for two and a half months of playtime, or holding some other employment.
One of the ABC reporters seemed shocked that kids get bruises on their knees– a thing which happens whether they’re working or playing. Pharmer suspects that few of these reporters and investigators have reproduced. This could be a good thing….
What about the last half of he headline? Earlier berry farm busts have been in Michigan, but the latest bust reported by ABC is in Washington State.
Note for comparison… the number of investigators combing the fields looking for kids working alongside their parents… and contrary to the reporters claims, essentially working FOR their subcontracting parents.
The Wage and Hour Division of the U.S. Department of Labor, which is overseeing investigations of berry picking supposedly had planned to pick up 250 new field inspectors after ABCs news investigation. The 2011 budget allocation was for 1672 employees in the WHD alone. It has a special division office in Portland Oregon.
As you know, Pharmer likes to pick on Portland, Oregon, the U.S. capital of child sex slavery, because it has only TWO vice cops allocated to address that and the other socially unacceptable practices.
Pharmer doesn’t mind seeing kids picking berries in a Washington field with their parents in the summer. The hard work might give them incentive to study harder during the rest of the year, to obtain the chance at better jobs. There is no caste system here. Picking berries is much healthier for a kid than working in Portland.
Some people do not live under ideal economic circumstances, and are inclined to co-opt all members of the family to help with the job of survival. Pharmer supports the opportunities for kids to be working with their own families, rather than being sold into a life of slavery.
Perhaps that offends some leftists…… or would it narrow their access to a desired commodity ??
Listen, child labor is a scurge that robs children of education and a childhood. Only adults should earn a living. Kids should be able to do easy work for allowance level pay. But they should not have to put in a hard days work, especially not at dangerous work that might take their life.
The farm workers who pick our food are partly responsible for feeding us. They deserve better than starvation pay, working half to death and the same for their kids.
None of us would want to be treated that way, or have their kids treated that way. A child care place on the mega-farm might be a good idea.
In any event, the kids don't have to be selling themselves in Portland, just because someone gives them a better deal than working to death 16 hours a day on a farm. It's dishonest to imply those are the only two options.
Lie number one in ex-dem's post is that the kids are working 16 hours per day.
People won't buy the farm produce if the price doubles according to the idealized pay scale.
Misguided bleeding hearts tend to boycott the businesses that employ kids, so that the income of the kids and their families are cut. A lot of good that does!
The statement at the end of my post addresses a global issue of child labor.
Maybe if the left and right stopped fighting better solutions could be found. Working picking fruit is not safe for parents or their children. Pesticides encountered while going about their daily work day are not only bad for those working in the field but studies show that it can affect an individuals posterity. I don't see anything wrong with work. I had a paper route when I was younger but if a nation with as many resources as ours can not dream bigger dreams for their their children then picking fruit with their parents in a field then it's past time they start.
Pharmer ponders the bowel tone of MJM, who apparently has a VERY limited diet, for fear of the pesticides on fruit, vegetables, and accumulated within the bodies of the herbivorous livestock.
As for the fight between the left and the right…….. the culture and world views of these two groups have become so different that there can no longer be any compromise solutions.
For example, the right thinks it's OK for kids to do some manual labor, for the sake of survival, and the left thinks it is OK for kids to have sex, or be marketed for such.
There will be no harmony between the left and the right.
Pharmer needs to do a little research on pesticides and there effects and see if pharmer can't figure out for herself the difference between having an individual work in a field and have direct exposure to pesticides and having the food supply exposed to the effects of pesticides. There both bad but the exposure in a field of produce is much greater. And if mjm had her way pesticides and herbicides would be not be a threat to people at all. On moral issues I share your distaste for the left but on issues that affect the good of all Americans I question your devotion to the right. mjm thinks that if the right stopped bowing at the altar of big business and the left stopped bowing at the altar of molech a lot more could get accomplished.
mjm also believes that if pesticides and herbicides aren't seriously limited that the bee population will continue to be affected. And also finds that pharmers benovolence towards children might increase if her own children were required to be in fields picking berries.
Aside from mjm's concerns with pharmers worldview, mjm really appreciates the fact that pharmer utilizes large print on her site!
If MJM had her way, there would be no pesticides or herbicides? WOW!
A lot fewer humans would be fed in that case. Pharmer has grown that stuff with and without pesticides and herbicides, and knows that the yield is greatly affected by the ability to control the competition. The yield of the pesticide free blackberries here is not too good, but we're not making an industry of it, so it's fine. On the other hand we have discovered the joy of glyphosate on different areas of the Pharm.
MJM is invited to tell us of her research in the comparative efficiency of pesticide delivery topically and by mouth. It varies considerably, depending on which pesticide is utilized.
The practice of pelting the fields with pesticides while workers are in them is no longer common in the US, nor is the picking of produce immediately after application of pesticides.
Berries tend to deliver more than usual pesticides to the final consumer as the outer skin is eaten, and the surface area to volume ratio is larger.
The berry farms are not by and large "big business", so the stereotypical hatred of big corporate is not generally applicable to this particular issue.
Soooo, is MJM really anti-berry, anti-produce, and how much of this sentiment is applicable to the personal lifestyle? How much of it should be inflicted upon the worlds food supply?
Pharmer recognizes that all of the animus-driven, regulatory burden inflicted upon "big corporate" is passed on as cost to the final consumer. It's just another type of value added tax for you and me.
Pharmer
That's awesome that you have a farm. I have a lot of respect for people and a little envy for people whose occupation is farming.
I have no problems with big corporations as long as they contribute their fair share.
I think it is awesome that you possess the courage to at least try to grow some berries without pesticides.
I know absolutely nothing about farming. I just know it saddens me to see so many farms going under. Once when I read about this farm that had been in a family for years and had decided to sell a few ideas came to my mind that might have benefited that family. Organic products are popular the American consumer is for the most part very aware of the health benefits of organic products and will often pay the higher price associated with it because they are aware of the benefits. What you should do is have a field that is not subject to pesticides and herbicides. And have a place where you can clean and process the berries and then blend them. Put your product in a earth friendly container. Write about your product and give some history of your with berries. And then you start marketing seriously. Before doing that take a lot at health magazines and see how much health products are being sold for. On your packaging mention the health benefits of berries. And especially berries grown organically.
I did a little research on glyphosate I could share my findings but it would mess with my vision of you going completely organic and getting rich in the process.
And a little advice if its not good for the bug it's probably not good for you.
typo:
your work with berries