Trump raids threaten US food security: farmers

Lisa Tate, whose family has been farming in Ventura County since 1876, cannot recall a threat to crops like the one emanating from Donald Trump's anti-immigrant onslaught.

Tate fears that the crackdown on illegal workers, far from addressing the problems of this vital agricultural region north of Los Angeles, could "dismantle the whole economy" and put the country's food security at risk.

"I began to get really concerned when we saw a group of border control agents come up to the Central Valley and just start going onto farms and just kind of trying to chase people down, evading the property owner," the 46-year-old farmer, who grows avocados, citrus and coffee, told AFP in an interview.

"That's not something we're used to happening in agriculture," she added.

The impact goes beyond harvesters, she said. "There's a whole food chain involved," from field workers to truck drivers to people working in packing houses and in sales.

"It's just, everybody's scared," she said -- even a multi-generational American like her.

"I'm nervous and I'm scared, because we're feeling like we're being attacked."

Other farmers contacted by AFP declined to speak to the media, saying they feared potential reprisals from the Trump administration.