The nation’s unemployment rate is at 9% and jobs are scarce. But one area where jobs are plenty and wages are actually going up is agriculture.
Yet, I keep seeing stories about how farmers can’t seem to fill their labor needs with legal U.S. workers.
NPR has this story today “Farm Work: Americans Steer Clear of Apple Harvest” about Washington state farmers who say hiring Americans is a fantasy.
One farmer, Bob Brody, told NPR that in the last decade he’s only had one American ask for an apple picking job and that would-be worker wanted too much money.
But NPR wonders if jobless Americans will reconsider now that ag wages are on the rise. A fast picker can apparently make $120 a day.
Virtual Farmgirl 
I have been totally taken with these stories as well. When you consider our country's internal economic woes and joblessness crisis and the issues of employing illegal workers in our fields and factories…suddenly that apple orchard you mention and the money available to be made there becomes a microcosm for a great many challenges the United States is facing at this time. I think we can learn a great deal from this situation…and here I thought the good old Granny Smith was only good for keeping the doctor away!
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I have been totally taken with these stories as well. When you consider our country's internal economic woes and joblessness crisis and the issues of employing illegal workers in our fields and factories…suddenly that apple orchard you mention and the money available to be made there becomes a microcosm for a great many challenges the United States is facing at this time. I think we can learn a great deal from this situation…and here I thought the good old Granny Smith was only good for keeping the doctor away!
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