California drought: Farmers cut back sharply, affecting jobs and food supply (CS Monitor) [View all]

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California drought: Farmers cut back sharply, affecting jobs and food supply

With drought limiting water deliveries from northern California and the price of irrigation skyrocketing, farmers' fields lie fallow and the politicized debate over solutions rages.

By Daniel B. Wood, Staff writer / February 19, 2014



Los Banos, Calif.

Besides the bulb-lit freeway signs every 10 miles along California Interstate 5 (“Serious drought, help save water”), there are printed placards posted in sparsely blooming almond and cherry groves, asparagus fields, and mile-upon-mile of empty dry-cracked or tilled earth:

“No water = No food”

“No water = No jobs”

“No water = No future”

On the scruffy shoulder of Joe Del Bosque’s 2,000-acre patchwork of asparagus, almond, tomato, cherry, and cantaloupe fields just outside the Central Valley town of Los Banos, some 60 miles northwest of Fresno, is his own, more specific, sign:

FARM WATER CUT

50% cut 2010

60% cut 2009

65% cut 2008

= HIGHER FOOD COST!

His sign doesn't even mention the latest draconian measures affecting farmers here. In late January, California officials, for the first time in the 54-year history of the State Water Project, announced they were cutting off the flow of water from the northern part of the state to the south, affecting both farms and cities, starting this spring. This as California’s Central Valley, producer of half of America’s fruits, vegetables, and nuts, is experiencing its worst drought on record. Unsurprisingly, on a swing through the farming region, the only topic of discussion is the growing number of widely divergent plans to deal with it.

http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/2014/0219/California-drought-Farmers-cut-back-sharply-affecting-jobs-and-food-supply

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