Goodbye Jobs

PART II- AGRICULTURE

Where will all the worker go?

Lets deconstruct the problem further. Source: Giphy

The changing Southwest affects more than just the natural environment. The people that live there depend on their home to sustain them. But what happens to them when the drought hits? We've been exploring how the Californian farming economy is on the losing side of this battle, so what happens to the farmers and farm hands?

As with many farming economies in the US, California relies heavily on migrant labor to pick the crops and maintain the fields (Bloomburg 14/02/14). So surely if there's less crop production then there will be less jobs in agriculture. During the 2009 droughts upwards of 6,000 people lost jobs in the farming industry (Alijazeera 26/02/14). And with this drought the losses could be up to 15,000 jobs. That's a lot of people out of work and it doesn't come at an opportunistic time in the American economy. 

But can't these people try and find jobs somewhere else? The answer: probably not, or at least not as easily as we would hope. Bloomburg (14/02/14) highlights several issues with this migrant labor force. They are usually uneducated for starters, which makes switching into other industries with a set of different required skills difficult. On top of this they are likely to be Hispanic with several being undocumented therefore making it unlikely to be employable in other sectors. In addition, these low-income, minority families have very little socio-economic ability to just up and change lifestyles meaning this shift in employment will likely upset the entire family from grandparents relying on remittances to children not being able to attend school. From the outside it looks like these workers can't find a job for the summer but in reality they might not be able to establish a livelihood.  

It is not just the farm workers that are losing out but the farmers too. The farmers have to make these tough employment decisions knowing how it affects rural communities (Washington Post 9/02/14). Farmers themselves have to manage a smaller income and its consequences. With increased 'thirstification' the cost may become too much and force farmers into new industries or into moving away from the drying rural areas. 

In this section we have explored the consquences of the drying American Southwest of farming. So if it's so bad shouldn't everyone move to the cities? Oh don't worry they have their problems too so stay tuned for our next section: Urban Settlements!

Let's do this! Source: Viator