SteveS wrote:Maybe Dole could start growing bananas in Ohio, West Virginia and other areas where there've been a lot of shutdowns of other industries ... former coal miners could be re-trained as banana pickers ...
I wish many of the American companies that abandoned the continental US would return, but they are making too much profits elsewhere. Not sure if the soil or weather conditions are conducive to banana farms or other agriculture in those regions...
Dole exploited the Hawaiians, growing pineapples, sugar cane and bananas, until it became too costly to operate there,. They abandoned operations there a few years after statehood, leaving environmental devastation and huge swaths of unemployed. They are now in places like the Dominican Republic, Mexico and South America, where labor costs are pennies compared to what it would cost in the US.
Big Agra in CA can't hire Americans to do that kind of manual labor, so they use migrant farm-workers, many in the US illegally.
Americans don't want to pay $1.00 for a banana or $2.00 for a head of lettuce, and don't want to do the harvesting work for $20/hr.
