What would happen if we didn't have foreigners to pick crops? A look at Japan

In the immigration debate often the question has been brought up "What would happen if we didn't have Mexicans to pick the crops?"

Well we don't have to ponder that question. There is actually a country we can look at to see how things would work: Japan.

I came across this subject while reading in another thread, Millennials say no to kids, population 'replacement level' turns negative, page 7.

So, how does it work in Japan?

People in Japan spend a larger percentage of their income on food than any other country in the developed world. The food is very high quality though and often very fresh.

There are a lot of small farms in Japan, and a lot of these farmers are older people. Plenty of elderly people out there in the fields. When asked, they say working out in the fields keeps their bodies healthy and able to keep moving. The country has a big problem with younger people moving to the cities looking for better opportunities, so it's left a lot of small villages with only old people.

In Japan agriculture is heavily subsidized by government. This has been a contentious economic policy at times, but there is strong support from the public for this policy to continue. Many people value the country's agricultural traditions and availability of high quality traditional foods. Farmer groups especially have a strong lobbying presence in the government. Agriculture provides an important source of income for the communities outside the more urbanized areas, so the problem of the rural areas becoming depopulated would probably be even worse if it were not for these subsidies. With employment problems for younger people the government even set up a work program to pay them to help older people on their farms.

Since Japanese people are the ones running the farms, there's a strong connection between the farms and the community, even including the people in the cities. Or at least that's the way the society likes to imagine it is. These perceptions are played up by corporate food producers and political leaders.

One of the other main reasons for the subsidies is that Japan values its food security and sees it as a national security issue. In the event of a war it would be important that the country could have a reliable food supply.

Agriculture in Japan is very important in Japan and is part of the reason the countryside looks so picturesque. Although most of the population in Japan lives in crowded cities without much open space, there is still a sense of fondness and longing for the agricultural past, with rice paddies, open fields, and green hills. In Japan the agricultural areas are only an hour or two away from the big cities and many people see agricultural fields outside the train windows on their daily hour-long commute to work. So this is still something that is of value to city dwellers in their daily lives, just being able to have a nice view out the window.

What about restaurants? Without foreign workers to work for low wages, how does that work? There are some very good restaurants in Japan with very high quality food. Most people in Japan cannot afford to go to these expensive restaurants very often. There are a lot of very small family owned shops run by husband and wife. Such little restaurants can only fit around 8 to 14 people. The prices are only a little more expensive than comparable Asian restaurants in high cost of living regions in the U.S. Noodle shops are also very popular among many people. These are designed for convenience and fast eating and, although most customers sit down, the restaurants encourage the customers to eat fast and not stay very long. These establishments have low prices and are only a little more expensive than fast food in the U.S. Basically they are just noodles in broth with a little bit of meat and a tiny bit of vegetable.

Overall, the quality to price ratio isn't really that different from many parts of the U.S. Especially when one considers the high population density in Japan and the higher cost of restaurant space.

Many convenience stores carry small refrigerated fresh meal trays, with fresh seafood and vegetables, and can provide a small healthy lunch. These are prepared and supplied by outside vendors, and are reasonably priced. A comparable concept to this doesn't exist in the U.S. Containing perishable food, the meal trays have to be replaced every two to three days. So in a sense, the Japanese have much healthier fast food than America, though the portions may be smaller than what many Americans are used to. Rice and vegetables (combined with just a little bit of fatty fish) fill you up though.

So in conclusion the Japanese do not really suffer for lack of low wage labor in restaurants. They just have to be a little more efficient in their use of labor. And there is a fair level of poverty in Japan, but it's relative poverty, since the rents for housing space are high.

 

Dominance of foreign labour in Britain is a recent phenomenon. Before that a combination of women and student were preferred. The switch reflected a means to undercut. Farmers could pay a lower piecework rate and/or reduce net wage through provision of accommodation. It's purely a means to increase economic rent.

There are aspects of agriculture where margins are a problem (e.g. milk), reflecting a failure in bargaining. However, it's a relatively rare phenomenon. You don't get poor farmers in the bread basket of Britain

 

Very simple. We specialise on something that is not farm work and the Third World specialiise on picking crops and other types of farming. Then we trade and at the same time we help them rise from poverty, we get food to the price we want it.

 

'What would happen if we didn't have foreigners to pick crops?'

What would happen? The farmers and growers would have to pay fair wages instead of slave wages so that indigenous workers would pick them??

 

EU agricultural subsidies certainly have harmed economic development. However, I'd be careful with using comparative advantage to make conclusion here. Africa, for example, has seen net reductions in well-being due to reliance on resource exploitation. It needs a shift towards industry (and that requires more than just eliminating our subsidies)

 

The West did not become "high-tech" over a night. It is a process that takes very long time and the best thing to do is to let each nation develop in itsown pace. If we wish to stimulate African agriculture we should give them shovels not tractors.

 

Talking about the industrial revolution as if it's a historical evolutionary experience isn't accurate. Take the tiger economies. They saw rapid technical progress, generated through industrial policy focused on creation of infant industry. While it's not something that I support, we do also have evidence in very specific industries such as arms production (with offsets used to modernise and diffuse technical knowledge)

I'm certainly I'm favour of eliminating western agricultural subsidies. But that won't be enough. Development also needs the WTO to reform to allow forms of positive protectionism

 

There was something else interesting I came across.

I had always assumed that after the Civil War when slavery was ended the cost of cotton must have gone up. But apparently that was not the case.

price of cotton before the start of the Civil War in 1860 was 10 cents a pound.
http://mshistorynow.mdah.state.ms.us/articles/291/cotton-and-the-civil-war

price of cotton in 1876 was 9.7 cents per pound.
http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=33770

It appears the burden of not having slaves must have probably fell entirely on the producers then, and not the consumer.

That is, if you take away the low cost labor it will mostly be the businesses that will suffer lower profits, rather than all of that going to higher prices for the consumer.
(might also make those agricultural fields worth less if the profit margins are lower)​

 

That's an interesting perspective. Yes because possibly it doesn't make as much sense to be investing in tractors when there are plenty of extremely poor unemployed people who would jump at the chance even for grueling shovel work for very low wages (well the cost of living is pretty low in Africa, so "low wages" might be relative). Obviously one of the main drivers of industrialization in Europe was rising wage rates and shortages of cheap labor, where machines helped businesses cut back expensive labor costs. Africa is not at this stage yet.

 

OP...lazy America would starve!

No one is saying you can't have Mexicans pick our food. But license them as legal workers. After they put in 20 years feeding our fat asses then make the citizens. Just do things the legal way. It would take 5 fat Americans to = 1 Mexican for work output.

 

Are the offspring going to be as "productive" as their parents? Might be an important thing to consider.
Might not be a sustainable economic model if the benefit is only temporary.
Think about slavery for example, over the long-term.

 

Exactly my point! Westerners often make the big mistake in their foreign aid of assuming the 3rd World are at the same level of technological advancement as we are, handing them all sorts of technology they have no idea how to use. Or if they break, there is no one to fix them, creating even more costs and in the process making them poorer.

I once went to a lecture by an anthropologist who had conducted fireldwork in Burkina Faso, asking them on their perspectives on poverty and all informants gave insights such as "poverty is when you have no bike because without it you cannot go to the market and sell ypur eggs" or "poverty is when you have no cow."

It is important to respect their conditions and not try to hurry their development. It is not like finding a time machine, going back to the Stone Age to hand the cavemen iPhones would benefit them in any way whatsoever.

 

You are right. I spent about 9 months in Japan, when I was a young man, but did not pay attention how thier economy worked. I do remember traveling by bus into the countryside and was impressed with the beauty. Thanks for your information.

I was visiting a son in Germany and noticed that there were a pasture of cows and every morning a couple farmers would march the cows through town and at night bring them back for milking. My son told me the cows were a co-op and owned by the people in the town and they paid a family to take care of them. That way they had their town but also had a large swath of free land around them.

 

They need us. We don't need them.


http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/next/tech/farming-with-robotics-automation-and-sensors/

https://www.asirobots.com/farming/

https://www.agriculture.com/technology/robotics/how-automation-will-transform-farming

 

Japanese farms are cheap, when I sell my English one, I will buy one.


They have the same problem all developed nations do. Farming is bloody hard work and pays sod all.
No one wants to do it.

 

Here in the US the model is a bit different than Japan. When farm labor is unavailable or becomes too expensive, relative to the value of the crop, there are few choices. Large farms usually rely on technology and machine harvesting of the produce. Small farms sellout to the larger farms or switch to less labor intensive crops.

When I was a teenager I could earn $10 in less than six hours picking berries, green beans, and fruit tree produce. I would need nearly $100 dollars today to buy what that $10 bought then.

 

I hear ya. I can remember buying 4 lbs. of hamburger for a dollar in California in 1965. In 1966 moved to the East Coast and it was 3 lbs. for a dollar. Today lucky to get 1 pound for under 3 dollars.

 

What would happen if we didn't have foreigners to pick crops? :

what would happen? supply and demand!! prices would go up until the jobs were filled.

 

That is far too simplistic, there are other possibilities. There is a price point where consumers stop buying a product simply because the cost is too great. No consumption =no production=no employment. That small bit of the economy dies.

 

I doubt Americans would have empty refrigerators.

You do realize that 95% of the sticker price of the cost of food comes just from getting it from farm to supermarket, through the distribution chain, and the cost of retail? The farmers themselves are only being paid about 5 cents for each orange.

http://nfwm.org/education-center/farm-worker-issues/low-wages/

 

Yes,i do realize, I am a farmer.

But the grower must make a profit or production stops, and all of the other associated costs become irrelevant.

 

Anyone ever driven HWY 101 through Oxnard CA? Take a look at all those nice cars and trucks that the pickers drive. By the time you figure free health care, free well baby care, SNAP, WIC, welfare, free school lunches, uninsured Mexican auto insurance coverage, low income rate utilities, English learners slowing down the English proficient, etc. How much did that head of lettuce actually cost you?

 

yes and that means if farmers had to pay pickers double or triple it would barely be seen at retail so Trump can sent all the illegals home to make room for Americans making $30/hr. Too bad most Americans already have jobs.

 

James M, I'm having difficulty making any sense out of your post. If most Americans have jobs and they leave those minimum wage jobs to earn $30 an hour harvesting cabbage, who would be left to flip burgers at KFC?

 

I don’t mind if Mexicans pick our crops as long as they’re here legally.