California agriculture feeds the nation. So, after suffering a severe drought for the past three years that caused a loss of nearly 9,000 farm jobs and left the state with about $1.2 billion in water costs, it’s becoming more and more clear that what happens in California impacts all of us.
According to a new report prepared for the California Department of Food and Agriculture, 2021 was the second driest two-year period on record, resulting in reduced water deliveries to nearly 400,000 acres of cropland. The New York Times reported that by 2040, the San Joaquin Valley is projected to lose at least 535,000 acres of agricultural production—more than one-tenth of the area’s farmland.
California is America’s fruit and nut basket, supplying two-thirds of the country’s fruits and nuts and more than one-third of America’s vegetables to grocery stores from coast to coast. The state’s No. 1 export is milk, followed by almonds and then grapes, all averaging about $50 billion in annual revenue and employing more than 400,000 people.
Now, thanks to the drought that’s part of a 22-year mega-drought in the West, the state is forced to implement water cutbacks, forcing growers to fallow farmland and pump more groundwater from quickly emptying wells.
Additionally, farmworker jobs are being decimated by the drought.
“These farmworkers belong to the lowest-income group in the state, particularly in the Central Valley,” Josué Medellín-Azuara, a water resources economist and associate professor of civil and environmental engineering at University of California, Merced told the Los Angeles Times. “So when climate hits, these communities are hit harder.”
The report was created by using surveys from irrigation districts, analyzing water, and reviewing satellite data to track changes in croplands.
Reservoirs in the state remain at unbearably low levels and the snowpack in the Sierra Nevada stands at 67% of its average for this time of year. Federal water managers announced recently that many farmers should prepare to receive no water from the Central Valley Project, the Times reports.
Central Valley farms have primarily relied on pumping groundwater during droughts, and for decades water levels have been plummeting. In response in 2014, California passed the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act, which offers a system for managing groundwater and requires local agencies to develop plans to assure farms don’t overpump. But many local rural homeowners are barely surviving, with wells that continue to dry up. Nearly 1,000 households in the Central Valley have reported dry wells, all of which will likely force lawmakers to put limits on the use of groundwater, forcing growers to leave large swaths of acreage dry.
Researchers have suggested alternatives to water sustainability that require using less groundwater.
In addition to the obvious (limiting groundwater use), one idea is to convert farmland to solar farms, while another is habitat restoration—which state officials have supported with a $50 million budget for a land “repurposing” program.
Researchers say they’re hopeful that the state will figure out new ways of growing without overtaxing groundwater.
“Agriculture in California is very resilient and innovative,” Medellín-Azuara told the Times. “Overall, we are weathering the drought and adapting to future droughts as well.”
But the reality is, San Francisco, San Jose, Eureka, Sacramento, Fresno, Los Angeles International Airport, and parts of the Sierra Nevada all recorded their driest January and February period on record this year, and many Southern California locations landed in the top five driest.
According to water and climate experts, it would take 140% of the state’s normal yearly rainfall to recover from the ongoing drought.