My Year With The Mexicans

Folks,

Being self-employed is a one step back, two steps forward affair usually, and
often enough a
two steps back, one step forward dance. Nonetheless one keeps dancing, and
looking at
opportunities.

I was once offered a job in a small agricultural town, and when one has failed
to keep as
many promises as I have, one should be liberal with others who share the
failing. But given
that, one should always have a plan B ready.

Plan B in this case was to learn about fruit and get into the exporting of the
crops worldwide.
Of course I was not going to start at the top, but I met with a most respected
grower/packer,
and his advice was “learn fruit grades, and work with a company that has a
consistent pack.”

My plan was to spend a year in every phase of the business, and learn as much as
I could. I
answered an ad for labor at a 30 acre orchard with the kind of hard scrabble
owner who did
everything himself, including building his own mechanized packing shed. I was
put under
the direction of Miguel, a sort of foreman.

Before I say anything else, what is outstanding in my mind about working with
Mexicans is
that lunchtime assumes everyone is welcome. Generally the men set up, the women
prepare,
the food is self-service, and everyone eats. I was most welcome. It was an
awkward
moment, clearly their food was better, there was plenty and I was welcome, yet
no one would
care for what I had in my lunchbag. Don’t even think of offering to pay.

It was late August, the picking had not begun, so I came in at the preparation
time. First job
was to space the fruit bins in the orchards, here done by hand. Since this
orchard was on
gently rolling hills, that meant dragging the bins up and down. It was clear
they gave
me a job to test my resolve.

Next clean the dried, hardened food-grade wax off the packing machine conveyor
belts, more
nasty work. Miguel worked hard too, on other projects. After two weeks, I got
my first
paycheck, and Miguel said he wasn’t sure if the boss had gotten his hours right,
and wanted
to see my paycheck to verify (we had worked the same hours). Well, I new I was
being paid
more than Miguel, because I am white, and I knew he knew it too, and he just
wanted to see it
in black and white, on a paycheck.

I adore an outraged confrontation, so I showed him my check, and he laughed,
pointing out I
made more than he did. Yes, I grinned. He replied something to the effect that
the
difference is made up at the welfare office. And yes, indeed, as I learned
later, there is
remarkable settling of accounts at the welfare office.

A fraud investigator for the state once told me “all welfare recipients are
engaging in some
sort of fraud, because welfare is just not enough to live on.” Well, if one of
USA’s largest
welfare recipients, Boeing Airplane Company, must cheat to make ends meet, what
of the
welfare mom?

When we got into picking I was given a plot to pick, with careful instructions
as to how it is
done: grab the bottom of the apple, turn it upside down, twist it off, lay it
down in my
pickers bag. When the bag is full, lay the bag down in the bin, and rather
slide the fruit out.
Got it.

Except due to an ingenious tracking system, at presort time, they can tell
exactly how one
did. I did terrible, probably the worst anyone had ever seen. Low
productivity, and that
which I did pick was generally damaged. Happily I stayed on hourly while
everyone else went
to volume.

When it came time to pack for sales, the physical labor was hard, but of course
the esprit de
corp carries everyone along.

It is easy to see why small farms have pretty much disappeared. One does not
have the
economies of scale to comply with the rules and regulations, and one is not big
enough to
get the subsidies awarded to the mega-growers. Small farmers must regularly
commit
federal offenses, and hope they do not get caught. I think one reason illegal
immigrants are
desired is because they will not rat out the growers as they break laws.

Children can move into this business, or get a college degree and get out.
Extremely few
kids stay in the business. It is very common for a grower to to turn over his
orchards to
Mexicans, selling the orchard after retirement for an income stream. There is
something
here... a Mexican who may never have a chance to own a farm in Mexico can come
to USA and
end up owning one here. Now consider something: Think of someone raised in USA
having
to bend the rules to survive in USA, versus someone from Mexico having to bend
the rules to
survive in USA. Who is going to be better at it?

I recall just ten years ago Miguel telling me about a worker, from Mexico, who
had bought a
new truck. A new one! (Now remember, this is Washington, not California). He
was
astonished and envious. Things were moving fast. Last summer, visiting the
town, a group
of locals were talking about cars and one fellow commented “no one is buying the
Cadillac
Escalade because it is what every Mexican is driving.” I bet the dealer doesn’t
mind.

It is clear the Mexicans are doing all the work, have all the jobs, but isn’t
that what an
economy about? Working and supporting a family. The majority at the welfare
office is still
the USA-born.

The banks do their part. Banks no longer carry the small farmer thru a few bad
years, now
they wait for a farmer to get into trouble, foreclose at a discount, and sell
the 30 acres at
below market to a mega-grower. What child wants to follow in the family farm
under those
conditions?

The government is heavily involved in “assuring farm viability” and one
practical step they
take is to verify the quality of the fruit being shipped. Everyone sees that
they do nothing of
the sort, yet they must be paid. The money paid for the government services, if
retained by
the grower, would keep some marginal farms viable. It is no wonder there are
more people
working in government than manufacturing in USA, public policy is government
jobs are more
important than farming or manufacturing.

Further, farmers are charged a fee on each box they sell to promote sales of
apples.
Naturally, this promotion benefits the big growers, since the money is spent
advertising to
big buyers. Small growers are obliged to pay for their own destruction.

And just about every box of fruit shipped in USA involves a federal offense, but
something no
one is going to change, which I will not get into here, only to point out that
such distortions
in the marketplace, leads to a cynicism that is destructive in practice.

Having learned what I did, I graduated on to something of a consulting contract
to increase
the export sales volume and price for a grower owned by MetLife Insurance.
Insurance
companies must make diversified investments with all the cash they have, and
agriculture is a
good part of a diversified portfolio.

Except this particular 2000 acre operation seemed unable to turn a profit. I
signed on and
rather quickly turned the numbers around, to the point even I was suspicious of
my success.
It was too simple and it only took a few months. The manager of the operation
retired with
the operation on the upswing, and the assistant manager, now acting manager,
fired me the
next day. Mystifying, but I went on to consult with a seed propagator, a
fascinating business
that had no restrictions, regulations, or subsidies. Rather straightforward and
profitable
business. The company wanted more customers and I showed them how.

About five years later, after moving back to Seattle, I received a newspaper
article about the
apple and pear company I consulted for, the MetLife outfit, and the fellow who
had fired me.
He and the CFO had been convicted of embezzlement, wire fraud, money
laundering,
whatever. Here was their game: By stealing money from the company, the net
profit for the
firm would be unnaturally low. Being low, MetLife would seek to sell the
orchards. Given the
lower net profit, the selling price would be lower. Where would the fellows get
the down
payment to purchase the orchard? Why, the money they embezzled to get the
selling price
down would cover the down payment.

A neat trick, but the best investigators work for private companies, and
insurance
investigators have ways of spotting fraud. These fellows’ fraud was spotted
and they drew
stiff federal sentences.

It seems to me given the tendentious rules and regulation, and the unfair,
market distorting
subsidies, the entire agricultural system in the USA generates a cynicism among
the players
that inevitable degenerates into gamesmanship that gets criminal in some cases.
I think a
de-regulation of USA agriculture and a concomitant cut in taxes would lead to a
renaissance
in USA farming. But I say that about everything.

Miguel is serving a stiff sentence at the Monroe State Reformatory for a heroin
conviction. He
and I often talked about starting a free range chicken farm (many of the eggs
hatched for
chickens in USA actually are laid in Mexico). Maybe we’ll work on that when he
gets out.

John

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