I had the opportunity to go both to the talk by Professors Heuvel and Dudley as well as the tour of West campus last week.  I thoroughly enjoyed touring the tunnel of west campus and hearing all about the secret society that meets at the top of one of the Gothic dorms.  I have occasionally seen people at the top of that tower and was curious who they were and how they got up there.  Now I know that I’ll have to wait two years before I’m able to see what I imagine to be a magnificent view.

During the Rose-Becker talk, I learned some very surprising facts.  I never would have guessed that Walmart is the #1 buyer of New York apples.  The professors had anyone that had had even the slightest contact with farms raise their hands and I was amazed how few people in the room had any experience with farms.  A very interesting connection was made between certain political candidates’ desire to build a wall to prevent illegal immigration and how that would affect the availability of farmworkers.  It is estimated that up to 95% of farmworkers are undocumented, though this is hard to estimate because these people often want to remain invisible so that they are not deported.  If every illegal immigrant were suddenly deported, there would be enormous labor shortages.  Food would sit in fields because there would not be enough people to harvest it.  This provided an interesting perspective on the immigration issue, one that I had not considered in the past.