immigration restrictionism can help induce a high-wage, high-tech agricultural sector

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In a recent New York Times column, Binyamin Appelbaum argues that immigration restrictionism is a fool’s errand for the agricultural sector. The argument is familiar: these are jobs Americans won’t do; robots can replace some workers, but not all; and if farms cannot import foreign labor, our nation will be forced to import foreign food instead. Policymakers, he concludes, should accept second-class immigrant labor as a permanent feature of American agriculture. But as happens so often with these narratives, the story he tells points precisely the opposite way.

Appelbaum’s central exhibit is Dale Hemminger, a dairy farmer in upstate New York who installed milking robots in 2007—after immigration authorities arrested one of his workers. His farm now produces 2.5 million pounds of milk per worker per year, up from 800,000 before mechanization. His remaining employees—about half the headcount he would otherwise need—earn more, work shorter hours, and do less grueling work.

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