BAKERSFIELD, Calif. -- While harvest season is getting under way for some crops in California, fewer illegal immigrant farm workers are on the job, fearful of immigration raids and deportation.

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The result is that growers can't find enough field hands,and fewer farm workers may mean higher food costs at the grocery store, according to the California Farm Bureau and the United Farm Workers union.

Last week representatives from the union met with lawmakers in Washington D.C. to look for ways to fix the growing labor shortage problem, Bakersfield, Calif., TV station KERO reported.

Coast-to-coast immigration raids in recent weeks have the farmworker community buzzing.

The migrants are "very, very threatened right now," said Wasco, Calif., farm worker Isabel Rojas. She said workers are "almost afraid to go to work because they're afraid of getting picked up."

Rojas, born and raised in the U.S., is seeing the effects of those raids firsthand.

She said the company she works for, Western Horticultural Inc., is short 200 workers for the harvest next month.

"This is like a time bomb just ready to go off," said Luawanna Hallstrom, who chairs the state farm bureau's labor office.

The immigration raids combined with more stringent visa rules could lead to higher prices at the grocery stand as fruit and vegetables may be not be picked, she said.

The union and the farm bureau hope that a piece of legislation stalled in Congress this summer will help solve the worker shortfall.

The bill calls for an "earned legalization" program that would allow H2-A visa guest workers and farmworkers in the country illegally to earn a "blue card" signalling temporary immigration status with the possibility of becoming permanent residents of the U.S.

To gain a "green card" signalling permanent residency, the temporary resident farmworker would need to perform agricultural work for at least 100 work days per year for each of five years from the date the law goes into effect.

The AgJOBS bill is sponsored by Sens. Diane Feinstein, D-Calif., Ted Kennedy, D-Mass., and Larry Craig, R-Idaho. It has bi-partisan support but fell apart this summer on the Senate floor because of a filibuster.