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Several states around the nation have enacted laws to crack down on illegal immigration, but farmers left with empty fields are becoming the victims of unintended consequences. And experts say the labor shortage could shrink Georgia's economy by nearly $400 million.

Despite unemployment and a $10.48 hourly rate, which is above $3 more than minimum wage, grower Curtis Rowley can't find enough local workers.

"It would be really nice to walk into town and say we need 15, 20 guys," said Rowley of Cherry Hill Farms. "We end up spending a lot more money because it costs money to bring people from Mexico.

Rowley participates in the federal program called H-2A, which allows foreign workers to enter the United States to make up for the lack of able and willing American workers. However, the H-2A program is not cheap.

To qualify for the program, Rowley had to prove he tried to hire American workers, using advertisements in four local states. He also has to obtain the visas for his workers and cover their transportation and housing. Taking that all into account, Rowley's labor costs have increased by nearly 50 percent.

"You are planning four to six months in advance, and not knowing what Mother Nature is going to give you," Rowley said.
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"There's great value to immigrants as workers, as taxpayers, and one that is much over-looked, as consumers," said Wesley Smith of the Salt Lake Chamber.

Utah has immerged as a leader in immigration reform and will host a Mountain West Summit. Stakeholders from Idaho, Utah, Colorado and Wyoming will meet to discuss the value of immigrants in the U.S. A mayor from Georgia will also speak at the immigration summit to discuss their labor shortage and the impact of the state's new laws.

"I hope they can take a step back and learn the issues and want to really look at the big picture," Rowley said.

As a farmer, Rowley never expected to get caught up in politics, but the future of his farm now depends on immigration reform. http://www.ksl.com/?nid=148&sid=17807432 all that illegals are used as a political tool, I think in the end the result of cracking down may be disasterous. It's not just that Americans don't WANT to pick crops, either:

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Georgia's tough new immigration laws may have worked too well, says Megan McArdle in The Atlantic: After no undocumented migrant workers showed up for the harvest, Georgia farmers left millions of dollars worth of fruits and vegetables rotting in the fields. Some economists have even pointed out that if the farmers had to hire legal pickers, they'd go bankrupt. But almost everyone is "wildly underestimating what's involved in becoming a skilled picker," McArdle says. If the U.S. actually seals off our southern border, "we will see a lot more ruined crops." Here's an excerpt:

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A lot of commenters (have) suggested alternative labor pools that could be tapped at higher wages: criminals on probation, teenagers bussed from the cities, people on unemployment. Adam pointed out the obvious problem with this theory: Georgia farmers have a low-margin good, and they are competing in a nearly perfectly competitive market with farmers from other states who have cheaper labor. That means that they can't raise their prices to compensate, and they don't have much profit margin to lose. It may well make more economic sense for them to let the crops rot.

Most fruits and vegetables require surprisingly skilled handling (which is why they still use pickers, instead of machines). Bad picking can easily destroy the profit margin on your crop, costing you more than you gain....

The illegal immigrants who harvest our crops have grown up doing this, learning the way my grandparents did. There are almost no Americans left who have either the painfully developed musculature or the painstakingly acquired knowledge to rapidly harvest a field without damaging the crop. And acquiring those skills is tricky, because the picking season for any one crop is very short... after which, it's time to start picking another crop that you don't know how to handle. And it's best done in a group of people who know what they're doing, not in a clueless mob that just got dumped in the fields for the first time.

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More at http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2011/07/illegal-immgrants-
might-be-undocumented-but-theyre-not-unskilled/241510/]