I don’t buy everything N.C. Farm Bureau chief Larry Wooten has to say here, maybe not even most, but this viewpoint is all too easy to ignore. Cheap labor does have benefits, benefits close to home:
Closer to home, Western North Carolina and U.S. apple producers have been losing ground to China in the apple juice market over the past decade. Gene Klimstra, the Farm Bureau’s apple market expert in Hendersonville, says 75 percent of the apple juice consumed in America comes from concentrate — 95 percent of which originates in China. Clearly, the abundant and cheap labor supply in China impacted this market shift. At least three juicing plants in Western North Carolina closed shop as a result, costing hundreds of jobs to the detriment of many mountain communities.
Imagine signature North Carolina agricultural products such as pork barbecue, sweet potatoes and cucumber pickles being mass-produced in China. Considering China’s formidable natural resources and its large work-force, this thought is not as farfetched as it may seem.
Well, it is a little farfetched. But here’s the bottomline to ponder: How much would someone have to pay you — or your spouse or son or daughter — to claw sweet potatoes out of the ground with your bare hands?
