AZ Growers Moving to Mexico

"Basically, the idea is if you can't bring the workers from Mexico to pick your crops here in the U.S., you take your crop to Mexico where the workers are," said Dawn McLaren with Arizona State University's W.P. Carey School of Business. "The land is there, too. It's not as though the land is that different on one side of the border as it is on the other."

As just one example, McLaren said the United States imported about 35 percent of its limes from Mexico 20 years ago. Today, it's 100 percent. And the U.S. imports 50 percent of its avocadoes from Mexico.

The shift to growing in Mexico could be an unintended consequence of Arizona's tough new employer sanctions law, which takes effect in January, McLaren said.

The Yuma area produces about 90 percent of the nation's winter vegetable crop. Growers have said they need 30,000 foreign workers to harvest the crops, beginning next month.