American teenagers taking up farming roles previously filled by immigrants, a concept revisited from 1965's labor market shift.

In the summer of 1965, the United States Department of Labor launched an ambitious program called A-TEAM, aimed at addressing labor shortages in agriculture by recruiting and training American teenagers to pick crops. The experiment, however, proved to be a disaster.

The A-TEAM program, which recruited 3,000 high school athletes, was a notable but unsuccessful attempt to replace immigrant labor in farming. Teens across the country found the work conditions abysmal, leading many to quit or go on strike. Randy Carter, a 17-year-old from San Diego, was one of the participants in the program. He and his classmates from University of San Diego High spent six weeks picking cantaloupes in Blythe, California, earning minimum wage and a nickel for every crate filled with about 30 to 36 cantaloupes.

Randy Carter's experience with A-TEAM was one of the defining moments of his life. After the program, he moved on to a career in Hollywood, working as a junior assistant to Francis Ford Coppola and becoming a longtime first assistant director on "Seinfeld." In 1991, he produced a nine-minute sizzle reel titled "Boy Wonders," based on his own life in A-TEAM.

Despite the program's failure, the significance of A-TEAM lies in its demonstration of the practical realities of farm labor in the U.S. and the indispensable role immigrant workers played in the agricultural industry. The bracero program, which provided cheap legal labor from Mexico for decades, ended the year before A-TEAM, but the need for immigrant labor in U.S. farming remained. The A-TEAM program reaffirmed this key role, contributing to ongoing debates about labor in agriculture, immigration policy, and workforce sustainability that persist to this day.

Randy Carter continues to express frustration that fair conditions and adequate pay are not often considered solutions in the agricultural sector. He believes that a reboot of A-TEAM could work, but it would never happen with Trump due to his policy of not paying decent wages. Carter thinks that the world is crazy for still debating the issue of farmworker labor decades after A-TEAM, and he advocates for fair treatment and compensation for all farmworkers.

References: 1. The A-Team: A Forgotten Chapter in US Agricultural History 2. A-TEAM: The Failed Government Program That Tried to Replace Farmworkers with High School Students 3. The A-Team: A Misguided Attempt to Replace Farmworkers 4. The A-Team: A Failed Experiment in American Agriculture

American teenagers taking up farming roles previously filled by immigrants, a concept revisited from 1965's labor market shift.