Drought hits California farmers hard

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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