Results of a report, “Gauging the Farm Sector’s Sensitivity to Immigration Reform,” show enforcement-only immigration reform would raise food prices over five years by an additional 5-6 percent. The nation’s food and fiber production would be cut by as much as $60 billion.
Under an enforcement-only scenario, the hardest hit domestic food sectors would be fruit and vegetable production, declining by 30-61 percent and 15-31 percent, respectively. U.S. livestock production also would plummet by 13-27 percent.
The study was commissioned by the American Farm Bureau Federation (AFBF) and compared changes in farm output, farm income, farm asset values, commodity prices and food prices across four generic reform alternatives. The study can be found at http://www.fb.org/newsroom/nr/nr2014/02-10-14/labor-study14c0207.pdf.