Among the major findings from Escalante’s case studies is that as the supply of foreign labor, chiefly Latino undocumented immigrants, has diminished, about 67 percent of surveyed farmers in the five Southern states he targeted said they were having a hard time finding workers. These include two states being sued over their new immigration laws.
Continuing shortages, the study says, would result in a 5 percent to 10 percent increase in the price of commodities. Smaller farms, Escalante, a University of Georgia associate professor of agriculture and applied economics said, were more heavily reliant on their own families. In one case, a farming couple asked their two offspring to return home from college to help run the operation.
