You could soon pay more money for worse food. Thanks, Donald Trump.

[yallerdawg]

11. What happens.

Tomatoes rotting in Alabama farmer Brian Cash's field after his 65-strong workforce vanished to avoid the immigration crackdown

For generations, Cash's family have farmed 125 acres atop the Chandler mountain, a plateau in the north of the state about nine miles long and two miles wide. It's perfect tomato-growing country – the soil is sandy and rich, and the elevation provides a breeze that keeps frost at bay and allows early planting.

For four months every year he employs almost exclusively Hispanic male workers to pick the harvest. This year he had 64 men out in the fields. Then HB56 came into effect, the new law that makes it a crime not to carry valid immigration documents and forces the police to check on anyone they suspect may be in the country illegally.

Today there is no-one left. The fields around his colonial-style farmhouse on top of a mountain are empty of pickers and the tomato plants are withering on the vine as far as the eye can see. The sweet, slightly acrid smell of rotting tomato flesh hangs in the air.

The blow to Cash can be measured in those $100,000 – money he says he had wanted to put aside as insurance against a poor crop in future years. But it can also be measured in other ways.

Cash says that losing his pickers is much more than a commercial disaster. "Many of these people are friends and like family to us. They have been working for my family for years."

The crew leader for Cash's fields has been working for his family for 17 years. "He's my age and we pretty much grew up together," he says.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/oct/14/alabama-immigration-law-workers