We can add food scarcity to our worries about cuts to Medicaid, SNAP benefits, public health and the tariffs destroying our quality of life (and quite possibly our lives, themselves) under Donald Trump. This latest threat comes via Trump's immigration fascism:
In the vast agricultural lands north of Los Angeles, stretching from Ventura County into the state’s central valley, two farmers, two field supervisors and four immigrant farmworkers told Reuters this month that the ICE raids have led a majority of workers to stop showing up.
That means crops are not being picked and fruit and vegetables are rotting at peak harvest time, they said.
One Mexican farm supervisor, who asked not to be named, was overseeing a field being prepared for planting strawberries last week. Usually he would have 300 workers, he said. On this day he had just 80. Another supervisor at a different farm said he usually has 80 workers in a field, but today just 17.
…
Most economists and politicians acknowledge that many of America’s agricultural workers are in the country illegally, but say a sharp reduction in their numbers could have devastating impacts on the food supply chain and farm-belt economies.
In case you or the shockingly ignorant Donald Trump think that this just matters to Californians, Reuters points out that “Over a third of U.S. vegetables and over three-quarters of the country’s fruits and nuts are grown in California. … The state’s farms and ranches generated nearly $60 billion in agricultural sales in 2023.”
That includes the California tomatoes that almost certainly go into Trump’s ketchup.
