It doesn't appear America can compete with Mexico, even giving farms free welfare handouts, subsidies, bonuses, advertising, etc. But it is starting to cure the illegal immigrant problem.



IRAPUATO, Mexico - Antonio Martinez used to pay smugglers thousands of dollars each year to sneak him into the United States to manage farm crews. Now, the work comes to him.

Supervising lettuce pickers in central Mexico, Martinez earns just half of the $1,100 a week he made in the U.S. But the job has its advantages, including working without fear of immigration raids.

Martinez, now a legal employee of U.S.-owned VegPacker de Mexico, is exactly the kind of worker more American farm companies are seeking. Many have moved their fields to Mexico, where they can find qualified people, often with U.S. experience, who can't be deported.

American companies now farm more than 45,000 acres of land in three Mexican states, employing about 11,000 people, a 2007 survey by the U.S. farm group Western Growers shows.

Major corporations such as Archer Daniels Midland Co. and Bunge have invested across Latin America for decades, particularly in countries like Brazil, where agribusiness is booming.

Recent Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids have targeted major agricultural producers, including Del Monte Fresh Produce in Portland, Oregon, and several large packing plants across the nation _ scaring away immigrants and persuading many agricultural employers to clean up their hiring practices.

"Employers can't find legal workers to replace this huge number of illegal workers," said James Holt, an agricultural labor economist and independent consultant based in Washington. "Their only option is to go where the workers are."

Many of the growers, once based in California's Salinas Valley, are also heading south to escape high land prices and water shortages. Mexico is closer to eastern U.S. markets than California, they say. Shipping times to Atlanta are a day shorter from Mexico's central Guanajuato state.

Farm workers at U.S. companies in Mexico make two or three times Mexico's minimum wage of $4.80 a day. But they still earn far less than the average $9.60 an hour that field workers in the United States made in January 2008, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

The problem is that cheaper labor in Mexico often is offset by lower productivity and high training costs, especially when it comes to enforcing U.S. food-safety standards.

"The only thing that's cheaper down here is diesel fuel and the labor per day," Scaroni said. "My productivity is down 40 percent" from U.S. levels.

Some US farms outsourced to Mexico - Yahoo! Philippines News

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One Tin Soldier Walked Away...............


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Vote like you want peace & prosparity for America - because the right wants more wars, more casualities, more VA hospitals.

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What a shock, cheap labour is lower quality.

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Set your destination with your heart, get there with your mind.

"The wisest men follow their own direction." - Euripides

I am not sure 4.80 is cheap labor in Mexico, which is 768.00 a month. Seems I read of Americans living well down there for around a thousand a month.

I do however think there is a big difference between a Mexican labor and an American labor - and I am not at all sure that the Mexican way is not the better way for humans. I never heard of siestas until I went to Mexico where "What I do not do today, there is always tomorrow."


=============GLEENED from a site+++++++++++
"While only about one-fifth of Mexican workers earn the minimum wage — the average wage is about 2.5 times higher — it is used as a yardstick for calculating many salaries, taxes and fines."

__________________
One Tin Soldier Walked Away...............


Vote like your life and your families life depends on it - because it does.

Vote like you want peace & prosparity for America - because the right wants more wars, more casualities, more VA hospitals.

Vote like you want a secured border from terrorists, illegal aliens, drugs, and gun runners - because the right offerred you a few miles of wire fence.

I just took it from your article, "The problem is that cheaper labor in Mexico often is offset by lower productivity and high training costs."

edit: You also need to take into account the taxes that they pay on that $768 a month.

__________________
Set your destination with your heart, get there with your mind.

"The wisest men follow their own direction." - Euripides