Drought: California Agriculture in Collapse
October 16th, 2009Via: AP:
As California prepares for its fourth year of drought, farmers are nervous in California’s San Joaquin Valley. The valley’s eight counties, if they were their own state, would be the top producing one in the nation. Nearly all the U.S. cantaloupes, garlic, almonds and processing tomatoes come from here. And so do nearly 400 other commodities — more than anywhere else.
The lack of water in the state’s reservoirs, coupled with the environmental collapse of the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta where water from the state’s wet north is pumped south to irrigate fields, has restricted the amount of water some of the state’s most prolific farmers receive to as little as 10 percent of normal.
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“You think we had a tough year this year?” said Marvin Meyers, an almond grower on Fresno County’s dry west side. “Wait ’til next year.”
Farmers and the advisory board of the California Department of Agriculture said the state’s $36 billion agriculture industry cannot afford another season of uncertainty. More packing houses they depend on to send their fruits, nuts and vegetables around the world will move to more reliable areas — across the border into Mexico they fear — if they cannot count on a reliable supply.
Another year of pumping salt-laden water from underground aquifers could kill their soil, they say. Board members warned that the Westlands Water District on the valley’s west side is the first to be hit by the crisis, but the water problems are spreading to the state’s other agricultural regions.
Some avocado growers in San Diego County are cutting trees back to stumps because the limited available water is too expensive.
“Where will the next shoe drop?” said board member Adan Ortega Jr.
Dan Bacher writes a lot about water, fish, and management issues. Here is his article about the south Central Valley, where he says Westlands is playing politics and hiding water, and several crops were bumper crops this year: http://www.counterpunch.org/bacher08242009.html
Sometimes I think he’s barking up the wrong tree, such as opposing spatial marine reserve approaches to coastal fish management rather than enforced take limits.
I know i should write more, but…
Another year of pumping salt-laden water from underground aquifers could kill their soil, they say.
what?!
The ancient Greeks and Middle Easterners did the exact same thing to their soil. Greece has been a perennially poverty stricken country for thousands of years as a result; and the Fertile Crescent, the Garden of Eden of ancient lore, hasn’t been fertile for nearly the same amount of time; and we all know about the parched pathos that passes for Middle Eastern culture these days. California’s Central Valley is the perfect example of free enterprise, the same as Greece and the Middle East is a perfect example of the result of ancient libertarianism. Primitive man wallowed in the splendor and plenty of the Central Valley for 15,000 years, and it was more fertile than ever when the Europeans invaded. Civilized man has lived in the Central Valley for 200 years, and they’ve already scraped it to the bone.
They blame it on the salts, but mineral salts per se are not a bad thing to pump on your soil to maximize fertility — so long as you are maintaining the soil with organic inputs to equal the outputs.
We specifically ADD several kilo of sea solids to our large gardens with magnificent results, as part of a comprehensive plan of replenishment that sees all our tastier-than-the-store veg produce consistently good Brix numbers.
The “salty herring” is a standard distraction from the true bone-scraper hiding in the middle of the living room like your favorite pink post-tequila elephant: industrial aggro-culture.