'They quit after a few hours': Farmers admit they can't find American workers

[turbinetree]

By Tom Boggioni
Published June 21, 2025 1:36 PM ET

In interviews with the Washington Post, multiple farmers expressed their dismay with the loss of farm workers under Donald Trump's harsh immigration policies and his administration's waffling on subsidies.

In a deep dive focusing on one farmer who voted for Trump, 36-year-old J.J. Ficke of Kirk, Colorado, the Washington Post is reporting that he along with other farmers are facing possible ruination now that the round-up of immigrants have begun in earnest and promised helpis uncertain.

"The federal government had promised JJ a $200,000 grant, spread across two years, to cover the cost of a seasonal farmhand from Latin America. In a place where local, legal help was nearly impossible to keep

https://www.rawstory.com/trump-farmers-2672410822/

[Klarkashton]

1. No surprise! This happened the last time they tried this shit.

The result was ... Guess what ... Amnesty and the guest worker program.

[dutch777]

12. This has been played with over decades. Few Americans are willing to work that hard, for so little...

I lived in WA state 20 years ago when the Feds and the state looked for ways to increase US labor on farms and decrease the immigrant worker population. They tried hiring high school and college kids, retired folks, the unemployed and it always ended the same way. Starting on Monday and by Wednesday 75% of the workers walked away complaining it was too hard, too hot, too back breaking, for too little money. A few % made it to Friday and no one came back the next Monday. And the experiment was tree fruit, not the really back breaking stuff like strawberries and asparagus where you are bent over all day and have the occasional rattlesnake to contend with.

[Bayard]

2. You voted for this, Farmer Ficke

FAFO

[RockRaven]

3. It is really dumb for 4 out of 5 of you to vote to do this to your businesses.

[BOSSHOG]

10. Do conservatives punch themselves in the face or

Do they punch each other in the face.

[tulipsandroses]

4. Nope. Nope. Nope. No bailout for farmers. Absolutely not. No bailout, no grants. They voted for this.

Some of these very same people are against student loan relief. Saying they didn't take out loans and shouldn't have to help pay for it. Well I didn't vote for the orange motherfucker. You did. You wanted immigrants rounded up and deported. What did you think was going to happen? Now we are supposed to foot the bill for a grant? Nope, no fucking way. They better find a way to recruit trump voters that wanted this.

[Klarkashton]

9. Trump voters are all on disability and other

Plans. Every fucking time. Look at the history of the J6 assholes as an example.

[kacekwl]

5. Fuck you farmer. You along with many will be standing in

the soup line soon. You farm will be dust soon anyway because of climate change. Bless you bigoted heart.

[Klarkashton]

6. Govt "promises" aren't worth shit anymore.

[BOSSHOG]

7. Oh My. The Heartbreak of Conservative Values!

[haele]

8. Basically, if you aren't raised working around a farm,

You don't know how to handle farm work.
It's backbreaking if you didn't start young, and haven't already trained your body to balance and move efficiently for either ground, vine, or tree harvesting.
I had experience at you pick'em farms growing up (basically, allowing passersby to come and pick leavings after the farmworkers have already harvested the good stuff that went to market) It's painful enough trying to get a couple gallons of produce for a month of family use. Trying to do it for a living?
Ouch.

[KentuckyWoman]

16. This

I am from generations of farm people. By 2yrs old you were out there "helping". That was a small family farm. The big farms now are brutal work. You can't just wake up one day and decide you can pick lettuce for 16 hrs a day.

[Drum]

11. Snowflakes falling' in the heartland.

[DinahMoeHum]

13. With apologies to Tom Lehrer ("George Murphy")

". . .Should Americans pick crops? Trump says no,

'Cause no one but an immigrant would stoop so low,

And after all, even in Egypt, the Pharaohs. . .

Had to import . . . . Hebrew braceros". . ."

[Hotler]

14. Dirty Jobs star Mike Rowe says young white men don't want to work. Maybe he could go on FOX News

and plead for them to start filling those jobs. Kevin Sorbo is whining he can't find a job.

[KentuckyWoman]

15. Most farmers voted for this.

Non farming poor people will suffer the most when food supply rots in the field and meat packers close up. I feel for those. Farmers? Not so much.

[mucholderthandirt]

17. Apparently the huge "Farmers for Trump" sign in the area is gone.

It's been up for at least a decade, proudly proclaiming some local idiot's pride in voting for the loser.

When I was growing up, tobacco farms were huge around here. The families always worked at harvest time, the kids came to school at least two weeks late and had to catch up. I knew a bunch of kids who worked the farms for the money. They all said, in great detail, how hard it was, day in and day out, in the heat and the dust.

Back then, we didn't have a large migrant population here. In fact, I only ever went to school with one Mexican family, who had been in the US almost as long as my family. They were mill workers, like most of the rest of us.

People today just don't get how truly hard most jobs are. I see people complaining all the time about how awful it is to work in one of Amazon's warehouses, and I'm shocked. Don't they realize these are hard, physical jobs that mostly don't pay well, are often pretty dangerous and have no future growth? Get real, people.

There's no reason we can't have a working migrant worker program in this country, one that helps the farmers/ranchers and the workers. Safe conditions, decent pay, some measure of benefits. It's only right, and everybody would be happy. But no, you think deporting people won't apply to *your* workers. LOL Jokes on you, fuckers!

[republianmushroom]

18. We are living and learning

a hard lesson.