Source: Tom Karst, THE PACKER, 10/11/11

As much of the agricultural community seeks to avoid a mandatory E-Verify law without a suitable guest worker program for agriculture, economists with the American Farm Bureau Federation, Washington, D.C., have estimated the U.S. could lose $5 billion to $9 billion in agricultural production and $3 billion in net farm income if growers are left without a sufficient legal workforce, said Paul Schlegel, director of public policy for the Farm Bureau.

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