ICE Raids Impact CA Farms, Leave Crops Unharvested: Report

Recent immigration raids have left farm fields throughout California largely without workers, spelling trouble for peak harvest time, Reuters reported on Monday.

More than a third of U.S. vegetables and three-quarters of the nation's fruits and nuts are grown in the Golden State, according to the California Department of Food and Agriculture.

Amid President Donald Trump's disruptive immigration crackdown, an unknown number of fruits and vegetables have been left to rot as workers vacated normally packed fields in recent weeks.

“In the fields, I would say 70% of the workers are gone,” Lisa Tate, a sixth-generation farmer in Ventura County, told Reuters. “If 70% of your workforce doesn’t show up, 70% of your crop doesn’t get picked and can go bad in one day. Most Americans don’t want to do this work. Most farmers here are barely breaking even. I fear this has created a tipping point where many will go bust.”

A steep and sudden reduction in California's number of agricultural workers could devastate the food supply chain and trigger price hikes for consumers.

An estimated 80 percent of farmworkers in the U.S. are foreign-born. And nearly half of them are in the U.S. undocumented, according to Douglas Holtz-Eakin, a Republican and former director of the Congressional Budget Office.

“This is bad for supply chains, bad for the agricultural industry,” he told Reuters.

Read more from Reuters: Immigration raids leave crops unharvested, California farms at risk