Farm Woes, Farm Solutions
Water deliveries from the federal and state water projects in the Delta are at historically low levels owing to natural drought and regulatory actions, and there is no certainty of when things will get better. Farmers in the western San Joaquin Valley, which is heavily dependent on water conveyed through the Delta, have been especially hard hit. As a result of sharp cutbacks — in some cases as much as a 90 percent cut from the contracted amount — thousands of acres of the world’s most productive farmlands have been idled this year and may be idled for some time to come. Water shortages in Fresno County had by mid-summer left 262,000 acres fallow. Throughout the region the number of acres out of production is now approaching 500,000 acres. Almond growers, for example, are feeling the direct impact as some are bulldozing acres of mature trees due to a lack of water.
Farmers in north San Diego County are also hurting. Starting in 2008 water supplies that serve this area from the Delta were cut by 30 percent as a result of pumping restrictions to protect fisheries in the Delta. In turn, farmers have had to make very tough decisions including stumping avocado trees or removing citrus trees altogether in order to continue farming with reduced water supplies.
To supplement extraordinary water needs in the San Joaquin Valley, many growers are to a greater or lesser degree burning through reserves brought up from underground aquifers. This strategy, as currently practiced, is unsustainable. Even in the best of times, California farmers get 30 percent of their water this way and considerably more in drought years when surface water cutbacks occur. This practice of groundwater overdraft compares to mining a finite resource. Thus, when years of drought occur, the water table may drop dangerously. Where the surface of the aquifer was once perhaps ten feet below farm fields, it is now down hundreds of feet in some areas, putting it beyond the reach of older drilled wells. Overdrawn aquifers present a critical loss not just for current crops but they can also have consequences that last well beyond the return of a rainy season, including increased costs of drilling and pumping, land subsidence, and degraded water quality, all of which are being experienced now in parts of the San Joaquin Valley.
Fallowed farmlands also translate into unemployment. According to Richard Howitt, agricultural economist at the University of California at Davis, the Central Valley’s local economy has already lost tens of thousands of farm and support jobs. An estimated $1 billion in income and farm-related wages has also been lost. Indeed, the unemployment rate in Mendota, a dusty city of 9,870 residents west of Fresno where high unemployment is a long-term problem, rose to 41 percent in 2009. Its food banks and other social service agencies are overwhelmed trying to meet the growing social and economic needs before them. Pedro Miranda, a 30-year-old farm worker with a wife and baby to support is typical. “I’ve been going from farm to farm looking for work for a long time, and all I can get is one or two days of work a week. My baby needs food. I need work.”
Investing in Efficiency
Crisis is the mother of invention, and in recent years it has brought about a variety of innovative water conservation practices — especially in crop irrigation. These improved technologies are allowing farmers to get the most out of every drop.
As recently as 2001, half of California farmers used non-pressurized flood or furrow irrigation, the choice driven by availability and relative low cost. Increasingly favored are pressurized systems such as sprinklers or surface drip irrigation, which are more costly to install but apply water with greater efficiency. They can be fine-tuned to existing sun, temperature, humidity, and wind conditions using a combination of global positioning satellites, wireless communications and sophisticated irrigation control software.
Subsurface micro irrigation, commonly referred to as “drip” irrigation, has been around since the 1980s. It is more expensive than traditional irrigation methods but delivers water under low pressure directly to the plants’ root zone, typically through buried perforated flattened tubes, or “tapes.” One remarkable micro irrigation application is linked to underground sensors that check moisture levels near the roots. The “wired” farmer gets real-time information by phone allowing him to adjust watering times from wherever he is and that helps his irrigation plan stay flexible and his crops stay right in the sweet spot of healthy growth — even with a lot less water. From 2003 to 2008 California farmers have invested over $1.5 billion in new irrigation technology. In Kern County alone farmers have installed enough drip tape in their fields to circle the globe twice.
Some farmers are also switching over from traditional crops like cotton, rice, sugar beets, and alfalfa to crops including seasonal vegetables, fruits, wine grapes, and nut crops. While the former crops use about the same amount of water in a given region as those that are replacing them, more recent crop choices can provide a greater return in net income for a given amount of applied water. Richard Howitt of UC Davis sees the new strategy of continuous improvement in water efficiencies as critical to California agriculture’s survival through the 21st century. Through experiments overseen by the UC Cooperative Extension, a number of Central Valley growers have discovered that by cutting back on water for navel oranges and pistachios, known as regulated deficit irrigation, which is a form of dry farming, they are actually producing sweeter, denser, crisper, and higher-market value fruits and nuts than they did with more copious irrigation plans. The owners of Flatland Farm in Sonoma County as well as farmers in Santa Cruz are trying experiments with apples and tomatoes with similarly impressive results.
The 2009 growing season is gradually winding down, providing real information on how farmers have actually fared in this year of discontent. Based on what is already known, the U.S. Department of Agriculture has declared 50 of California’s 58 counties natural disaster areas, thereby releasing some assistance funds. At the same time, growers all over the state are looking at their current practices, talking to their leaders in Sacramento, and hoping that through innovation and a little good luck, better days will come.