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SW “Ohia” | cornlover,
Finding labor when we still raised tobacco was always the biggest limiter to acres grown. Everybody else around here was in the same boat. Migrant workers were never common "here" and most people swore they would never hire them.
For those who have never been around Burley tobacco, it is not mechanized in any way. Setting, chopping, housing, stripping, etc are all done by hand. It is hard, nasty, dirty work that few people want to get involved in. Every job requires a good number of people to work efficiently. Six people while setting, five to seven while chopping, five while housing, three or four while stripping.
Most tobacco is grown by families who do all the labor themselves. Some may hire a local during chopping and housing time, but family size has always been directly related to the number of acres that could be grown. This kept most tobacco farms "here" under 10 acres. Nobody can grow tobacco on their own and paying high wages will eliminate any profit pretty quickly.
As time went on, fewer and fewer local people would return phone calls. Some were working more hours at their day job, and some just didn't feel that any pay could justify swinging a tobacco hatchet under the hot August sun. We didn't have any huge problems with this because we could do most of our labor ourselves.
However, the guys that were raising a lot of acreage with all hired labor got pinched in the last couple years before the buyout. Some hired migrants from other farmers in Kentucky, some dropped their acreage back to what they could handle with family help. Local people who can't get normal work (no driver license, police record, etc.) will sometime show up, but they aren't reliable and you might find something missing after they leave.
As much as it will hurt the big dairys, I often think that their labor situation is similar. Most of the small dairys I have grown up around do the work themselves, with maybe a high school kid to help milk in the evening. Their herd size is directly tied to the family labor pool, and yes, the owners work hard. However, the large dairys can't do that. The owners built to that size with the intention of a hired workforce, and now they are laying in the bed they made.
Farm labor has always been an interesting subject, but it seems that history uses it as a limiter in farm expansion. When farms begin to grow too large, either a new source of better paying work will appear to remove their labor pool, or workers will demand better wages. Farming is hard enough to make a living at, let alone make enough to pay another wage. | |
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Good video on Dairy and labor situation
