Cutting Off the Nose to Smite the Face

Crop Losses Could Top $1B - GPB

An agriculture industry group estimates a shortage of migrant labor may wind up costing Georgia fruit and vegetable farmers $300 million in crop losses. Officials worry the total economic impact will be even greater if crops from the next harvest are lost. 

The Georgia Agribusiness Council estimates the total loss stemming from spoiled and unpicked produce to be close to $1 billion.

Georgia is paying a high price for the near-sighted bigotry of its legislators. While the Republicans representing the suburbs around Atlanta and Augusta rode the immigrant hate-train long enough to pass House Bill 87, they completely ignored the engine that drives much of Georgia's economy: agriculture. Anyone who has ever driven through the state of Georgia knows that agriculture dominates much of the state. Being a resident of Georgia since 1998 I've learned this. Peanuts, Pecans, Peaches, Cotton, Timber, and Poultry are multi-million dollar industries in this state. For better or for worse, all of these industries are reliant on cheap immigrant labor; labor that is rapidly fleeing the state. Quickly realizing the bind he's created for farmers, Governor Nathan Deal is scrambling for solutions. He's ordered that probationers be sent out into the fields to pick crops; a plan that has failed miserably.

I'll never understand why our beloved legislature decided to pursue such an economically crippling bill during a time where Georgia faces 10% unemployment. Then again this is a state where in the year 2011, you still can't buy a can of beer or a bottle of wine on Sundays. It's the South, where the people have more disconnects than AT&T. I've grown accustomed to the backwardness of its politics. But when there's an issue like this that affects me directly, it gets irritating. As a result of this bill immigrants will flee the state, food prices will rise, farmers will struggle, and investment will look elsewhere, probably to more friendly states such as Florida. A state and region that has worked hard to escape its dark racial past is once again being dragged back into the darkness. It's up to the good people of Georgia, Alabama, Arizona and the rest of the United States to once again stand up for what's right, and force our leaders to do the right thing. Immigrants are people not aliens, and its time we start treating them like that.