"but this is impacting me and people I know"

Shouldn't be supprising "they" are like this, this is how to felt about COVID too.

If she was a supporter of the Democratic Party certain news outlets would be calling her a welfare queen.

I had thought that these people were supposed to "pull themselves up by their bootstraps." Just another rightwing Republican begging for some government, taxpayer funded, handout. Just why is she "deserving" of a whopping $200,000 "grant" from the U.S. government to hire "overseas" workers to pick her cherries? Just another "free lunch" handout to this Republican voting welfare queen! Tough titty said the Kitty -- the milk tastes shitty!

Fuck you, bitch, for voting for the Turd! Joe Biden and the Democrats gave your "ungrateful" ass those monies for your farm and you thank Joe Biden and the Democrats for that good fortune and for those agricultural grant monies ($200,000) by voting for Republicans and the Turd. Fuck you! Enjoy your economic losses! Maybe, when you idiot Republican Shitheads suffer enough economically -- you will vote differently.

The 20 year long ever-escalating assault on immigrant workers has caused a severe labor shortage here. The H2A workers - from the same places non-GH2A workers came from, not from "overseas" - are more expensive and less efficient. It is not a good deal for the growers nor for the workers. It is a stop gap to keep food production from moving overseas. Republicans want to have their cake and eat it, too - terrorize immigrants without impacting food supply. Of course, Wall Street doesn't mind food production moving overseas. In this case, cherry production is moving to Turkey - fewer environmental regulations and worker protections, bigger profits for the corporate food industry and better ROI for investors.

Tart cherries are mechanically harvested, not hand-picked. So there is that. The farm labor is needed mostly for other crops.

$200,000 is hardly "whopping." 10 workers for the season for one small farm, maybe? It is nothing. That includes transportation to the US and housing. The "whopping" amounts of taxpayer money are being spent on Gestapo raids and concentration camp detention and rendition, targeting the experienced and motivated workers coming here on their own and trying to build a future for their families.

Ag subsidies, in general, are for the benefit of the eaters, not so much the growers. There is a long tradition for this, going back to the formation of the land grant college system, cooperative extension, the public health agencies, Farm Credit, the USDA, etc. We should not be using Republican "a waste of taxpayers money" arguments about this.

Here in Minnesota, our party is literally called the DFL: Democrat Farm Labor.

Republicans HATE any small farmers not backed by big corporations.

Next!!!

No tears from me for the idiots who had to learn the hard way. They took the rest of us down the shit hole with them and I will forever hold them accountable for that.

All she needs now is a trade war with France.

something tells me many countries won't want to use American products.

The Montmorency tart cherry variety is thought to have originated in France, brought to Quebec by early French settlers. It was found that it did extremely well in Northwest lower Michigan. 70% of the crop nationally comes from here in Michigan. A small percentage of the crop is exported, mostly to Canada and to the UK.

Full disclosure: I am not an owner, but I have been around the tart cherry orchards all my life. I think I first picked tart cherries in 1962, I eat tart cherries every day, and I am looking out the window at a cherry orchard as I type this.

Sain no farmer anywhere during the Depression.

"Bad weather wiped out most of the crop?" It is climate change, not "bad weather," that has caused crop losses here in cherry country over the last 25 years.

"Her farm had been awarded a grant worth $400,000 through the U.S. Department of Agriculture to help pay for the costs associated with hiring seasonal workers from overseas through the H-2A visa program, which farmers have used for years to hire temporary agricultural workers. "

The visa program "farmers have used for years?" Hardly. The program was started by the Biden administration in September 2023.

The labor crisis has been caused by the anti-immigrant hysteria, fomented by Republicans.

The downward pressure on price the last few years has been caused by imports from Turkey where the cherry orchards are heavily subsidized by the government. Nothing to do with Trump.

This video is pretty good. Full disclosure, I know most of the people in the video pretty well (to say the least).

Thank you.

The public will be hurt when this ag sector goes down. The developers are chomping at the bit. That is where the big money is, not in farming.

There are 300 or so growers here, I would guess about 40-45% vote Democratic. But in this area, dominated by cherry orchards, 10,000 people voted for Trump.

Farm owners do vote Republican, but no more so and perhaps less than owners in any other industry. Are they stupid or doing so? Yes.

At very reasonable prices, don't worry. Of course, since your output has been reduced due to your lack of prison labor contracts, you will have to sell out for a lower price, but if you're lucky and well-connected, it might still be enough to pay off your outstanding debt.

The orchards here are preventing luxury resorts and suburban sprawl. Cherries will come from Turkey, that's all. Cheaper labor, fewer environmental regulations, less health and safety protocols, massive government subsidies from the Turkish government.

Selling the farms to developers would make the growers very wealthy. You have to love farming to keep going. The kids and grand kids of growers usually sell out. It will all be gone soon, not to worry.

There are no prison labor contracts here. It is a serious problem, however, and not just in agriculture

Hire the republicans who lost their jobs to the now deported undoc immigrants.

Thanks farmers!

There are not enough farm owners to have any impact on elections.

She is getting what she voted for. I save my sympathy for those who deserve it.

Republicans have never (or at least in a few generations) supported farmers. They support giant corporations who hire migrants to do the work at slave wages, perhaps. But beyond that, they only want their electoral votes, because they know they are more valuable, and cheaper to obtain.

... that a third-grader could have done, she would have known that Trump doesn't care about ANYONE but himself. Sorry, Becky, but you brought this on yourself. You, and others like you, are responsible for the horrors we're all facing now. Thanks a pantload.

The New Deal literally saved my grandparents' family,
kept them from starving to death, gave my dad a job
with the CCC, etc.

They thought Roosevelt was God.

Well bless her little MORONIC heart ❤️!!!!

Congrats, honey. Your face just became leopard chow.

I'll have to go get a virtual train coat for al the crocodile tears being shed.

Farmers are so good at farming and so dumb at politics to the point of being self-destructive.

but it will be too late.

Dems might dress the wound but it will probably be too late

small loss.

I almost can’t believe I’m saying something so cruel. But we know how the MAGAts hate empathy and compassion. So we have to speak a language they understand.

It’s patriotic. Pain before gain, and all that.

Hadn’t heard that before

that we taxpayers paid for. I seem to remember a lot of farm bankruptcies and farmer suicides before that.

I have no fucks to give.

Well, that's how her hair furhair calls the left so it's time to lift yourself up from your bootstraps, stupido.

It's more profitable than cherries.

This statement is demonstrably not true...ever. Never.

They're just not.

And during Trump's first term a lot of farmers suffered from the tariffs and random deportations, but most of them just blamed Obama.

They both voted 70% for Trump.

And both groups are getting fucked the hardest by Trump.

Rebecca. The republicans have never been for the American farmer. FIFY.

We see this as a feature story.