I understand what you're saying but in this economic climate (of a massive layoffs) you won't even have to pay a "decent wage".

A deflationary crisis is not supportive of high wages. Not in the least.

> Pay a decent wage and you'll get the people. The era of cheap labour is over.

or maybe some labor intensive fruits and veggies will no longer be economically viable.

They will become a delicacy.

I don’t think English people want to do this kind of work ...

If the 80% of salary from the government came with strings attached (i.e. "basic job", not UBI "basic income"), this wouldn't be a problem (provided that either masks are provided as well, or work is organized so that social distancing is maintained).

People in Britain were eating slugs they found on the ground before Polish explorers brought fruits to the country in 1549.

They don't want to do it because of the salary.

I don't know about the UK, but I've talked to California farmers who (off the record) tell me they quit advertising locally for workers because at $25/hr they still couldn't get people to work (most wouldn't apply, the ones who did quit after less than a day). Immigrants (not always legal I'm sure but I know better than to ask that question) are happy with $13/hour.

People quit after a day because they are in poor shape and those jobs are really hard on the body.

I read a story a while back where this guy went to work as a bike messenger and the first couple of weeks his body hurt every day, but he eventually really got into it once his body adjusted.

Maybe you could tell the gringos that they have to ease into the work. They only get to work 1 hour their first day, then 2 hours their second day and eventually work up to 8 hours a day so they don't give up.

So pay more than $25 an hour. There is surely a salary that people will accept to do the work.

I don’t know why everyone assumes that manual labor only deserves near poverty wages.

I agree - there should be no job that nobody will do, only jobs that people won't do at the price you want to pay them.

And what this really means, is that maybe certain products - like $7 bins of pecans from Walmart, or $1 heads of fresh lettuce - have been under a market that wasn't sustainable, and a lot of these food products that we take for granted should be luxury items again.

No one will pay $5 for an avocado.

Clearly, you've never been to Japan ;-) We've got $50 grapes! And that's for one grape... not a bunch... But I think you are correct that most North Americans especially are geared toward buying the cheapest produce available, often regardless of quality or production methods. I think it's slowly been changing over the years, but people still baulk at paying prices that would sustain small family farms without imported cheap labour. However, every time this kind of discussions come up, I feel it necessary to point out that vast majority of cost in food production is distribution, not production. This is due to the practical monopoly on food distribution that some companies have. You could actually raise the production price a pretty hefty amount without affecting the final price terribly if you regulated the distribution. Of course, what would the poor Cargill's do? They wouldn't be able to have swimming pools full of money. That won't do...

People said similar things about cotton before slavery was abolished. The world managed to survive.

People will absolutely pay $5 for avocados if that's what the price goes to. Avocados are among the easier things to pick though, so this doesn't really apply to them.

Tomatoes seem to cost about $3 at my local grocery store and are not nearly as good as avocados.

Have you ever been to brunch in San Francisco?

The cost of the raw food is 10-15% of the price of a meal. (Source: my wife ran a popular restaurant for 4 years.)

Then grow less labor intensive things.

And this is where we discover that the most important jobs that keep society running pay the least.

They pay the least because you don't need qualifications to do them, and supply of non-qualified people >>> demand. Simple economics.

The article here, and the discussion above, is a situation where clearly the demand is high but the supply is low.

Then pay more. As a white collar worker I'm not offended that some blue collar workers make more than me. And if I have to pay more for food so we actually have a country, with people who care for each other, and not just a giant economic zone with the disappointing selfish behavior we've observed in this crisis, that's fine with me too.

Give the recession some time to work its magic.

Yeah because it is badly paid and physically demanding.