The last days of a 350-year-old family farm
Low wage industries struggle in high wage countries.Globalization displaces natural local supply and demand outcomes.The above two factors result in some very complex status quos.For example, take the country of New Zealand, whose significant apple growing industry is largely for export purposes - ostensibly, sending good fresh highly-valued NZ apples to other countries, where they'll fetch max $.Problem: apple workers are minimum wage jobs. Over recent decades, the minimum wage in NZ has risen by a great deal more than the price of apples has. Profitability slumped.The powerful industry, rather than cede ground or change crops, instead loudly complained and politically lobbied to have special conditions put in place for their industry: since 2007, they can 'temporarily import' hundreds of foreign labourers from the islands of Tonga and similar - a special workforce of large muscled young men for whom any NZ wage is a fortune back home, and to whom the powerful orchardists and their cronies are like little gods.The natural local market forces that-would-be are being manipulated for commercial purposes, with significant and complex environmental, economic, and cultural side effects.Whose fault is it? What should we do instead?