US Ag needs to figure out how to go from low productivity to high productivity regardless. The world is rapidly aging, the total fertility rate is declining globally (Mexico's fertility rate is below that of the US', for example, and even they are running out of farm hands), and it is unlikely we outsource production of the necessary produce to India and Africa (the youthful, developing parts of the world that remain).

Certainly, farmers will complain they no longer get a cheap labor discount, this is a common refrain in any industry where their labor costs are no longer discounted due to structural demographics. The desire to pay humans the least possible for their labor is universal. Automate or die, those are your choices. If there is a need for subsidies, cost of capital assistance, whatever, we can do that; capital is a fiction, labor is real.

https://www.ers.usda.gov/topics/farm-economy/farm-labor/

https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/agriculture/our-insights...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2024/03/23/mexico-farmw... | https://archive.today/8rmWI

As long as the US stays very rich and <4% of total global population, we will not run out of cheap foreign labor unless the rest of the world becomes very rich or die off en masse.

I don't believe we can rely on the idea of wealth and a never ending supply of cheap foreign lump of labor from anywhere in the world (it has not gone well for Europe, for example, and Sweden is paying migrants ~$34k to return to their country of origin). A majority of the US population supports deporting the existing undocumented immigrants in country, and limiting further immigration (do they understand this would stoke domestic service inflation? probably not). The wealth is immaterial if the electorate ties your hands politically. Demographic systems and political populism are running head long into capitalism. This story is a symptom of that.

https://www.axios.com/2024/04/25/trump-biden-americans-illeg...

https://news.gallup.com/poll/647123/sharply-americans-curb-i...

(I am once again asking to think in systems)

This is not "running out of cheap labor".

This is tying your hands behind your back and not accepting it.

There's a difference.

The difference is the discussion, the outcome is what matters (imho). If something is technically possible, but impossible to achieve (for whatever reason), it is not truly possible.

There is, to my knowledge, no country that has solved its labor supply challenges with mass immigration in a sustainable manner. I am happy to be proven wrong if my understanding and model is inaccurate.

> There is, to my knowledge, no country that has solved its labor supply challenges with mass immigration in a sustainable manner.

Qatar's population has been happy with their system for a while.

That's not Qatar citizens complaining.

> Corn & wheat depend on massive machines run by skilled labor, but most of the rest depend on cheap labor.

I’ma say most nutrition is highly-mechanized (even if it may not make up the entire grocery bill if you buy lots of produce).

Highly mechanized would also include carrots, potatoes, onions, beans/pulses, oats, the flavourless tomatoes that make up 98% of the market, peanuts, lettuce & spinach.

Plenty of fruits I’d say are semi-mechanized: apples, pears and most citrus can use a machine that violently shakes the tree onto a net to catch the falling fruit.

You're totally right about the root veg (and I assume peanuts counts as a root veg in this context).

I meant to say cereal instead of wheat which would have caught oats and barley and some specialty cereals. Beans/pulses generally use the same machinery as cereals.

Definitely didn't mean to include tomatoes, lettuce & spinach, though. I know those are partially mechanized, but don't they still include a large unskilled labor component? Or am I out of date?

Farming mostly depends on having the right weather, growing conditions, and soil, which the US has in abundance.