With Water Allocations Slashed, CA Central Valley Farmers Maintain Balancing Act W. Dry Season Start

[hatrack]

EDIT

Fresno County-based Woolf Farming buys water from the Westlands Water District, which is supplied through the CVP. Daniel Hartwig, the farm’s resource manager, said the delayed 5% allocation “means a lot of uncertainty and people don’t know how to plan, and it means a lot of growers are having to go out into the market to try and buy water, but there’s very little available.”

Woolf Farming began planting tomato transplants last week. Hartwig said the farm had to order the plants back in December, to be sure they’d be available. “Even if we get that 5% (allocation), that’s like 2 inches of water per acre, so unfortunately, we’re going to have to lean a little bit on our groundwater this year,” he said. Cotton will be the farm’s “flex crop,” Hartwig said, meaning the farm will adjust cotton plantings based on the amount of water available.

Nick Rocca, whose family farms raisin grapes and almonds in Fresno County, said the Fresno Irrigation District has allocated 40% supplies. The district receives water from Pine Flat Reservoir and the Kings River, and can supplement with purchased water from the CVP Friant division. “We’re not going to get our first water delivery until June or July, which means I’m going to get two to three water deliveries, maybe, and I’m going to have to pump more,” Rocca said. “There will be ground in the district that doesn’t get farmed this year, and farmers right now are trying to decide which ground that is.”

EDIT

Along with the suspension of certain CVP deliveries, the State Water Project reduced its allocation to 5%, down from an initial 10%, and the State Water Resources Control Board sent early-warning notices to some 40,000 water rights holders, urging them to plan for potential shortages by reducing water use and adopting conservation measures. Amid the drought hitting California and other Western states, a coalition of more than 200 agricultural and water organizations said it would urge the federal government to further bolster investment in the nation’s aging water facilities.

EDIT

https://www.dailydemocrat.com/2021/04/10/farmers-try-to-plan-for-a-critically-dry-year/

[progree]

1. I'm sure glad I gave my Fresno area farm away to Population Connection in 2016

so I don't have to worry about that, YEAH! Pumping groundwater is very expensive (electricity costs), and the water table keeps going down down down. Don't have to worry about that anymore ... well except as a consumer -- I eat a lot of produce.

[hunter]

2. Factory farm dairy needs to go away.

It's a hellish life for the cows. Growing silage to feed cows is not the best use of water and land, and milk and meat are not especially healthy for humans when consumed in large quantities.

Yeah, I'm the kind of liberal they fear in Devin Nunes land. I don't think state and federal governments should be subsidizing things that are bad for us and our environment.

Another huge problem in the Central Valley is that by the time some farmers decide to leave land fallow it's just bare dirt that blows away in the wind. Then they put up signs blaming the "Dust Bowl" conditions on Democrats.

It's a difficult problem. Much of California's Central Valley should never have been converted to farmland. Restoring this land to a more natural state literally becomes a religious issue to people who believe they are doing God's work creating a land of milk and honey. (Exodus 3 -8)