This showed up in Modern Farmer feed even though it’s dated 2017.

Some thoughts:
[..]The idea is simple: any farmworker who has worked in the agricultural industry for at least 100 days of each of the past two years would be eligible for a “Blue Card.” (Green would logically be the best color to indicate an agriculture-based legal status but unfortunately, it’s already taken.) Blue Card holders would also be put on the fast track to a more permanent status in the US (either a green card or residency); depending on the number of hours worked, they could be eligible in three to five years.[..]

1. I am interested in automating small farms which use more manual labor than corporate farms that are essentially run like factories.

2. I want to do this because farm work is dirty and low paying and not really good for the human body or the environment or as a way of life to make a living wage.

3. What struck me about this article is how ‘blue card’ is proposed for anyone who has worked 100 hours in two years.

While trying to automate labour, I found myself woefully inadequate and illiterate. It requires a combination of various skilled people like robotics, engineers..mechanical/electrical..coders. And now you can’t do anything without beckoning blockchain. I am not being facetious because Walmart is making blockchain mandatory for lettuce. Etc.

4. So we are certainly moving from mechanization to automation. It will be the demise of small farms unless the costs scale down to create small farm technology. Regardless, the writing is pretty clear on the wall that we are going to enter a new era of growing food.

5. Why are we still using humans for jobs that is back breaking and dangerous. Our lovely citrus and nuts(generously sprayed) are all mostly exports. In CA, we even export alfalfa. I am not talking commodities but speciality crop farming that needs more labour than corn or soy or sugar beets. These are mechanized and automated to a large degree.

6. What message does this send to highly educated tech workers in fields like robotics and programming who can’t enter the country legally and even if they do, they have to wait for years before they can obtain a green card.

7. Why shouldn’t these people have better paying and less back breaking jobs? Why can’t they study and be better skilled in their home countries..and we can probably aid them in that area.

8. No undocumented farm worker ever said that they want their children to pick strawberries. Not one. Ever.

8. Rather than high minded, this sounds rather manipulative to me. Under the guise of well meaning intentions, this seems like modern day slavery.

9. If anyone wants to help those who work hard for food on our table, they must pay more for food. We want the cheapest organic food picked by those paid minimum wage. Handing over citizenship to them so they can continue feeding us is so repulsive to me.

10. I do NOT understand this and it bothers me. This twisted fake display of generosity makes me feel I want to distance myself from these farming ‘movements. It doesn’t seem like welfare. It seems like exploitation.

11. I don’t feel like I want to be part of farming anymore. Unless I can automate small acreage farms, I will quit by the end of the year. I am super conflicted by the ethos in the small farming community.