Across America, farmers have relied on immigrants to help them reap their harvests. Many times American farmers will supply illegal and legal immigrants with wages, and in turn the immigrants spend their days working hard for the farmers in their fields. Jobs such as picking strawberries or harvesting tomatoes aren't easy to do, and no machine can replace the manual labor. The farmers need willing workers to spend their days in the hot sun plucking produce so that they can send it to the supermarkets. Yet there may be fewer tomatoes on the sale display at your local Vons this summer. With Alabama cracking down on illegal immigration, many farmers are scaling down, planting less and reaping less than before.

One farmer told Fox News in a recent interview that he had to reduce his acreage. He is worried that with all the prosecution going on, he will lose the bulk of his farmhands, and have no one to pick the tomatoes he grows. After the Alabama governor signed the harsh immigration law that aims to remove illegal persons from the state, many immigrants fled. Farmers lost their employees overnight, and struggled to stay afloat. According to farmers featured on the Fox News interview, the state is currently resting in uncertainty.

Because the Alabama Department of Agriculture has not released farming statistics for last year, it's hard to know just how many farmers are being affected by the lack of workhands. Yet an official at the Alabama Farmers Federation says that this year will show how much of a labor shortage is actually out there. About 1,100 farmers in the state grow labor-intensive produce. This means that the produce must be picked by humans, rather than be harvested by a machine. Over the course of the past few years, many state agriculture officials have seen chronic labor shortages.

Why is Alabama's stance on immigration so intimidating to illegal aliens? The statue commands that all employers are registered with a federal citizenship database call E-Verify. If the immigrants are not able to pass the registration process, and are found undocumented, then the Alabama law bars them from any basic business transactions. Schools evens need to check the citizenship status of their new students in Alabama. Over the course of the law, parts have been stripped and renovated to lighten the impact it has had. The Obama administration issued a lawsuit, but despite tweaks, Alabama still has the highest standards for immigration in the nation.

Georgia also has a strict policy on illegal immigrations, and farmers there have experienced the same fears. Many farmers in this state, especially onion growers, have had to scale back, planting less so that there would be less to pick. One major squash-growing farm in the area moved some of their production to Tennessee, so that they would be able to hire workers to pick the produce. The question hangs in the air- why can't farmers just hire native Alabamans to pick their produce? Unfortunately, many citizens have realized that this is not an effective strategy. Alabama residents aren't willing to the grueling work in the hot sun with the endurance that immigrants are.

One farmer told press that he tried hiring minors in his area to do the hard work, but found that they were not compelled to do their duty. They would work from sun-up until lunch time, and then plead to be released for the day as the sun rose higher in the sky. Some farmers even worry that the immigration laws will push them out of farming altogether. If immigrants continue to vanish from Alabama, one farmer says that the agriculture business will suffer severely, and farmers will need to find something else to do.