Drought hits California farmers hard
Some wonder if they’ll survive without rain, despite water conservation measures.
By Kimberly N. Chase | Contributor of The Christian Science Monitor/ February 26, 2009 edition
Newman, Calif.
The almond orchards are beginning to bloom in California’s Central Valley, the vast swath of fertile, flat land that runs up and down the middle of the state. Bees are pollinating the rows of flowering trees, and the harvest will shape up over the coming months.
But for many farmers, one crucial thing is missing from this picture – water.
The US Bureau of Reclamation, which manages water allocation in arid regions, announced last week it will not provide vital irrigation to Central Valley farmers this year because of drought, and the California State Water Project expects to meet only 15 percent of water requests.
“That’s unheard-of,” says Jim Jasper, an almond farmer in Newman, Calif. “We’ve never seen a zero allocation for water.” Many growers here are destroying older and less productive trees to conserve water for other crops.
The University of California estimates that the drought may cause 847,000 acres to go unplanted this year, with income reductions of more than $2 billion and the loss of 70,000 jobs.
One of the richest farming regions in the country, the Central Valley covers 18,000 square miles between the Coast Ranges and the Sierra Nevada. It includes the San Joaquin Valley in the south and the Sacramento Valley in the north.
Many farmers and ranchers came here after the gold rush of 1849, and government irrigation projects after World War II allowed farming to expand. The area produces more than 300 crops, including nuts, fruits, vegetables, and grains, and it accounts for one-sixth of US-grown produce.
The Bureau of Reclamation’s Central Valley Project typically supplies about one-fourth of the water used by California farmers. Much of the land has access to groundwater and local irrigation systems, but many farmers on the west side of the San Joaquin valley rely solely on federal water.
There’s always been fierce competition for water in the West.
Much of it goes to wildlife refuges, municipal and industrial use, and to water rights holders from before the current system was established. Some of it is being retained for river flows necessary to the survival of endangered fish species including chinook salmon and the delta smelt.
If California production is drastically reduced, the water crisis could affect American kitchens. In an age when people want fresh, local produce, a reduction could ultimately lead to more imports, warns the California Farm Bureau.
Still, Richard Howitt, professor of Agriculture and Resource Economics at the University of California in Davis says it’s important to keep this drought in perspective. The acreage reduction he estimates at 18 percent will affect the entire supply chain, from farmers, processors, and fieldworkers, to tractor vendors, truck drivers, and gas stations.
But with its Mediterranean climate, California needs to learn to deal with severe droughts, he says. “Yes, it’s going to hurt lots of people. But it’s not the end of the world.”
This is the third year of below-average precipitation, and in mid-January the Sierra snowpack had reached only 61 percent of its normal level. With their dry ridges of waterless land, some of the state’s most important reservoirs are at a fraction of their normal levels.
Compared with California’s last two serious droughts in the 1970s and 1990s, experts say this one could be much worse, especially since the state has added 10 million people in the last two decades.
For now, it’s up to Mother Nature. Unusually high rainfall in the next few months could help to even out the dryness of October through January and prepare for the dry summer months.
“These last three critically dry years have drawn down our reservoirs to the point where it’s going to take a lot of precipitation to make a significant increase in our water levels,” says Bureau of Reclamation spokesman Pete Lucero.
Rain and snowfall in mid-February have been a source of hope. But Mr. Lucero says that’s like “throwing a cup of water into a swimming pool.”
For Richard Waycott, president and CEO of the Almond Board of California, the drought and the pumping restrictions for the state and federal water programs are presenting growers with major challenges.
“It means that people have to make tough decisions,” he says. Some growers will forgo planting other crops to save water for their trees, and some may irrigate just enough to keep the trees alive without producing a harvest for this year. Others will destroy less productive trees.
The California Farm Bureau warns that water shortages could have a lasting impact on California agriculture, a roughly $32-billion-a-year industry. If entire farms go out of business, seed dealers, equipment providers, processing facilities, and others could be affected.
“There are some farmers who may be forced out of business,” says farm bureau spokesman Dave Kranz. That’s what worries Jim Jasper these days.
He’s drilled wells on his 1,800-acre farm of almonds, walnuts, cherries, and citrus, and he’ll try to transfer water from another district where he has more land. He also has access to some irrigation as a result of conservation last year. But it may not be enough.
“A lot of money has been put into these lands,” he says, referring to water projects from the 1950s like the irrigation canal that runs beside his orchards. “Without water, it’s going to dry up.”
In recent decades, farmers have begun to use drip irrigation, soil probes, and aerial photographs to pinpoint dry areas, as well as improved weather forecasting to know when they’ll need irrigation. Productivity per acre has nearly doubled since the 1960s, with little increase in water usage.
But, says Kranz of the state farm bureau, “We can’t conserve our way out of this. The numbers are just too daunting.”
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Comments
2. Chantal | 02.28.09
Dear Christian Science Monitor: First, let me say that as an old person, I was sad to see the print edition stop.
I grew up on the edge of the San Joaquin Valley near the California Delta in the 1950’s and 1960’s in a thriving agricultural community that has become a giant blob of an ex-urb. This area was such a profitable farming area that much of the land in our town was owned by a large British agricultural export company named Balfour Guthrie. From the enormous asparagus fields on the way to Stockton to the orchards of the higher elevations, it was one of the great export-farming and specialty-crop farming areas of the world. Now, it is probably a foreclosure hub of the world. A lot of that transformation has to do with the tax structure and the water.
My father fought to confine development to alternating strips os housing and green spaces around the town, and within the existing town with a mix of higher and lower income housing. The plan was to keep the flat, Class 1-A soil cultivated with its row crops and orchards growing in its practically 365-day-a year growing area. Obviously a pipe dream. The transformation of that town around the the year 2000 mimicked the post WWII transformation of the San Jose area, and in fact, farmer families had to our area fleeing the housing developments of San Jose-Berryessa-Morgan Creek-Gilroy.
But the real hardship came when water from the California Delta was diverted to Southern California. My father’s well was part of a state study and was tested every year. The salinization of that water, about five miles from the Delta, the increase in boron, selenium, and other salts after the diversion of water to the South was dramatic.
It is not water to wildlife refuges, as Ms. Chase states, that has been a problem. Secretaries and other non-farming employees of Kennicott Copper Co. and other large corporations claimed the small parcels of land required to get water rights, and then Kennicott and other large landowning companies “bought” the land from the employees, and got the water rights. That is how an enormous portion of the vineyards and row crops of Bakersfield and other notoriously hot and dry towns along Highway 99 (note the name of the town and think how much water there was there!)began producing the wine and carrots we have today. When it says “Woodbridge” on your bottle, think: taxpayer subsidies for water diverted hundreds of miles from the Delta to large corporations in the most arid parts of the lower San Joaquin Valley. Small farmers could not have afforded the enormous capital investment of all those vineyards. Now, that may have been a good thing for the economy of California, but it was a very bad thing for small farmers. And it has had a tremendous impact on water conservation in the state.
Even earlier, the stupidest thing I never understood was the production of rice and cotton in California, with its naturally cyclic droughts. These are crops that take a tremendous amount of water, and are not Mediterranean climate crops at all.
But the worst water crime of all in the state is Southern California and housing developments in the desert with no public transportation, of course, to these far-far exurbs. These poor people allowed to build houses in fire and mudslide areas of historically low rainfall have caused not only personal catastrophe and deaths of inhabitants and firefighters, but have cost the whole state and the federal government billions of dollars.
Between water diversion from the Sierras (think the movie Chinatown) and water from the Colorado River, Southern California is the China of America in terms of water devastation.
So now, it is NOT up to Mother Nature, as Ms. Chase states. She indicates some of the solutions farmers have come up with over the decades. Water problems are man-made, so the solutions can be man-made as well. I disagree with Mr. Kranz of the Farm Bureau. Farmers themselves and experts at Cal-Davis and around the world have many proposals for water conservation and usage.
It is the lack of political will and short-sightedness in Sacramento to enforce good water policy that is the problem.
3. Dan | 02.28.09
I HAVE THE SOLUTION to the problem but it seems that nobody is helping me besides sending encouragement words. Look at my web site NewAgeHygienics.com and you will see that I can save 12 billion dollars worth of water per year, in US alone and may SOLVE THE PROBLEM. however, it needs some investment, not only words, and some more support from the California’s water agencies that are just giving me the run around and some support from the Federal Government would not hurt either.
4. Raven | 03.01.09
And with Obama cutting farm subsidies out to save money to pay for the bailout.
Food prices are going to rise dramatically this year and even worse next year.
If you aren’t prepared for the upcoming food crisis in America
it’s time you started…..
5. Lenora | 04.12.09
North Dakota has a water problem and would like to resolve their flooding issue with suggestions that could cost up to $1 billion. California has a water problem. They need water! So why can’t California & North Dakota get togther with a proposal to get that excess water to California via a pipeline to Colorada which would have a pipeline to California to distribute the water to California? A project like this would create jobs, reduce the cost of produce that California produces and maintain a stable production for the crops over the years so we would not have those high prices.
6. algaepreneur | 09.09.09
Set up an algae farm and grow algae for oil and biomass. Algae harvests 2-3 times every 24 hours. It is the fastest growing plant in the universe. Algae is renewable, does not affect the food channel and consumes CO2. Approximately 75% of the water is recycled in closed-loop photobioreactors. You may want to check out the National Algae Association.
8. Billy | 09.24.09
Shame on you Mr President when you bit into a fruit or a vegtable
Think of the Farmers from Delta Valley Cal that get enjoy in the winter….
They need water and by 1 no vote by a nut in congresswe will pay dearly for!
I am not very Proud of you as President, you are to keep us safe and not take food away from us…
9. Billy Hughes | 11.09.09
Nany Pelois has a vineyard in California as well as earning over $220.000.00 Government taxes. California is an area that is vulnerably to Wild Fires
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1. Stuart Blaber | 02.27.09
“Yes, it’s going to hurt lots of people. But it’s not the end of the world.”
I agree. It’s not the end of the planet but as for the anthropoids, well that is probably another matter. We should keep in mind that the climate and geological phenomena that are occurring now are only the beginnings of rapidly accelerating climatic changes. Ther is a lot more to climate change than a few storms and rising sea levels or temperatures. When the bees and flies die we can no longer grow food, and they are dying. The odds of survival are exceeding low.