Otter on the American farmer
Do tougher times motivate Americans to do their own farm labor? I’m David Sparks and Governor Otter will have an answer right after this. I had a sit down interview with the Governor the other day and one of the things I was curious about was the effects of a tough economy on Idahoans’ willingness to do farm work they haven’t wanted to do in the past. Here’s Governor Otter: “No question about it. When we were at 2.7% unemployment, it wasn’t that hard for a person to find a job if they wanted a job or switch jobs or start a new career…whatever they wanted to do, David. But today, when you’ve got 66,900 people out of work, they’re gonna take those jobs where they’re working on a potato digger or a beet combine, Heartbeet harvester or something else. If there’s work available, I have every reason to believe they’ll take it. They didn’t before because they didn’t have to.”
