Miles Reiter is a member of the California State Board of Food and Agriculture and chairman and CEO of Driscoll’s, a leading supplier of fresh berries.

By Miles Reiter

Reliable groundwater supplies in California are essential to the health and well-being of all Americans. Much of the food consumed in the United States, including about half of the fruits and vegetables, is grown in California. Without an improved management system of groundwater in the state, California’s agricultural capacity will become smaller and unreliable. The healthiest elements of the nation’s food supply will become highly variable in availability and cost, with some items almost disappearing entirely.

California’s groundwater resources are in jeopardy. They have been steadily declining throughout much of the state for many years, with current declines at rates never seen before. Along the Central Coast, where I live, groundwater makes up over 80 percent of the water supply. As a result of extraction in excess of replenishment, we are experiencing increased saltwater intrusion into the groundwater and general declines in water quality throughout the area. If this trend is not halted, we simply will not be able to provide the healthy food, jobs and economic vitality that go with a sound agricultural infrastructure.

If we are to protect California’s agricultural capacity, we must do a better job of protecting our groundwater. The solution needs to start at the local level. Four years ago, before the current drought started, our community in the Pajaro Valley around Watsonville was concerned about declining groundwater levels and saltwater intrusion. Local landowners and growers, the Resource Conservation District of Santa Cruz County and other groups joined together to launch a forward-thinking and action-oriented public/private partnership called the Community Water Dialogue.

Our mission was to solve the valley’s water problems. Our goals from the beginning included protecting the valley’s agricultural capacity, deploying diverse strategies that would require costs and sacrifices by all to restore the aquifer, and recognizing that we needed to solve our problems on our own and could not rely on outside fixes. We deployed a number of water-saving strategies that have made a difference. We have a long way to go to a sustainable valley, but pumping in 2013 was more or less the same as the amount pumped in 2008, despite a series of very dry seasons. Our efforts have not been easy, and not without long and passionate debate about the right approach. There will undoubtedly be decisions in the future that will be difficult and often painful.

I strongly support managing our precious groundwater resource through a combination of local management operating within the context of statewide objectives and support. We must recognize that significant change in the way we utilize our groundwater is needed. When half-measures and partial fixes were adopted in the past, they have not worked. It is time that California adopts a comprehensive, long-term plan that will protect this resource against overuse and future droughts. Local agencies need tools and the authority to effectively manage their groundwater.

Those who want to maintain the status quo argue that sustainably managing our groundwater will reduce our agricultural economy and devalue land. I have absolutely no doubt that we will do far greater damage to our economy and our communities if we fail to act. The result of inaction will mean running out of groundwater, worsening subsidence, and increasing saltwater intrusion.

My family has farmed California’s incredibly rich Central Coast for nearly 150 years. Groundwater depletion threatens the future; however, our local efforts to address this issue give us a chance to save productive farmland and the communities that depend upon it. Similar situations exist throughout the state. It is critically important that the state create a structure in which these local efforts are supported and empowered with the clear objective of stabilizing our groundwater resource. We need action from our lawmakers — now more than ever.

Link to article

SACRAMENTO, August 25, 2014 – The California Department of Food and Agriculture, in accordance with CEQA guidelines, has released the draft Statewide Plant Pest Prevention and Management Program Environmental Impact Report (EIR).

The draft Program EIR is a crucial step as CDFA carries out its responsibility to protect the state’s food supply and natural resources. Responding to invasive species such as plant pests and diseases is one of the primary ways that CDFA helps farmers and ranchers maintain a constant, dependable and safe supply of food.

The draft Program EIR document provides a comprehensive, transparent overview of management programs to protect California’s food system through the principles of integrated pest management, while also protecting public health and the environment.

The draft Program EIR includes a process to evaluate and include new developments and potential environmental impacts – called Tiering – while providing for public participation throughout the pest management process.

The release of the draft Program EIR triggers a 45-day period for public review and comment. Written and oral comments will be accepted, and all comments received in response to the draft will be addressed in the final Program EIR. CDFA is announcing public meetings to receive comments on the draft Program EIR. The schedule of public meetings is as follows:

Monday, September 22nd – 5:30 p.m.
San Diego County Farm Bureau
1670 E. Valley Parkway
Escondido, CA 92027

Tuesday, September 23rd -5:30 p.m.
Huntington Library
1151 Oxford Road
San Marino, CA 91108

Wednesday, September 24th -5:30 p.m.
Tulare County Agricultural Commissioner’s Office
4427 S. Laspina
Tulare, CA 93274ý
Monday, September 29th -5:30 p.m.
California Department of Food and Agriculture
1220 N Street, Auditorium
Sacramento, CA 95814

Tuesday, September 30th -5:30 p.m.
Napa County Agricultural Commissioner’s Office
1710 Soscol Avenue
Napa, CA 94559

Link to news release

 

“Water and the California Farmer” is a discussion of water in agriculture – Ag’s share of total water use, and the innovative conservation measures already practiced on farms and ranches around the state. More information may be viewed here.

Don Cameron, a member of California’s State Board of Food and Agriculture and general manager of Terranova Ranch, is on the cutting edge of irrigation. His wine grape vineyards stretch for 1,300 acres, so maximizing water is a top priority. Cameron has used drip irrigation on these vineyards since 1982, a time when drip was still uncommon.

Making the switch to micro-irrigation has saved Terranova Ranch 15-20 percent on water costs. When Cameron took over as general manager, he recalls, “I was told we couldn’t grow tomatoes. I was told the ground was too light.” Processing tomatoes now occupy 2,300 acres at Terranova, due in large part to Cameron’s implementation of drip systems. He contends, “We eliminate evaporation from the soil surface and provide uniform distribution of water and reduce fertilizer usage along with producing a 28 percent higher yield. We no longer have excess water accumulation at the end of fields as we did when we furrow irrigated.”

But drip irrigation isn’t the only practice that makes Cameron a pioneer in water use efficiency. During flood periods, which typically occur once every three or four years, he captures flood flows from the Kings River and diverts them to his vineyards to recharge the groundwater supply. Cameron is currently working to expand this practice with a Flood Corridor Grant from the California Department of Water Resources.

Terranova Ranch is also receiving bids for a 1-megawatt solar facility that will be built this summer to decrease dependence on conventional power for the farm’s water pumps. Taken together, these practices are a great example of how micro-irrigation coupled with strategic flooding and renewable energy investments can enhance water efficiency and responsible groundwater maintenance.

An Ag Water Fact Sheet is available as a quick resource on Ag water use.

Sergio Silva, 53, left, and Adrian Espinoza, 36, are partners at Rancho Espinoza, a flower business in Salinas, Calif. Credit – Jim Wilson/The New York Times

By Tanzina Vega

When he was 15, an immigration raid at a Japanese flower nursery turned Arturo Flores’s life around.

The owners needed a new group of workers to replace the ones removed by immigration officials, and Mr. Flores landed a job cutting flowers. He slowly worked his way up to packaging and delivering them. In the mid-1980s he got a call from two businessmen looking to start their own cut-flower business. They asked him to manage deliveries and distribution. Today Mr. Flores, 50, is the president of Central California Flower Growers in Watsonville, a distributor in Santa Cruz County that sells more than 100 varieties of flowers and other plants.

Farming businesses in the United States are still dominated by whites, but Mr. Flores (whose last name means “flowers” in English) is one of a growing number of Latinos who own or operate farms in the country. While the overall number of farms in the United States decreased by 4 percent from 2007 to 2012, during the same period the number of farms run by Hispanics increased by 21 percent to 67,000 from 55,570, according to data released in May from the government’s 2012 census of agriculture. The numbers signaled a small but consistent pattern of growth in agribusiness among Latinos, many of whom have gone from working in the fields to sitting in the head offices.

Many, like Mr. Flores, emigrated from Mexico in the 1970s and ‘80s and worked their way up from picking produce to managing the business. They have classic American bootstrap stories of grit, determination and a little bit of luck. Some own the land they till while others rent. Many employ Mexicans whose language and job duties they understand intimately.

Salvador Vasquez, 56, who owns Vas Vision Berry Farms, a berry grower for Driscoll’s in Watsonville, came to the United States from Mexico when he was 11. Mr. Vasquez said it was his ability to communicate in English and Spanish with the workers and the supervisors on the farms in Watsonville that helped him move up from being a fruit picker to becoming a supervisor.

But it was not an easy ascent. In 1989, Mr. Vasquez worked as a supervisor during the day and in the fields at night. “If I slept nine hours in five days it was a lot,” he said.

By the 1990s, he supervised more than 2,500 farm employees, and by 2000 he had become part owner of the business. “You have to work hard for the American dream, but it is possible to achieve,” he said.

Sergio Silva, 53, is the chief executive of Rancho Espinoza in Salinas, Calif., a company that grows and distributes calla lily bulbs under the name Coastal Callas. Mr. Silva, whose parents obtained green cards after being guest workers in the California agriculture business, came here from Mexico when he was 13. After struggling to learn English, he dropped out of high school in the 10th grade and went to work in the Salinas Valley, “doing any field work you can think of,” he said.

At 22, Mr. Silva got a job at a vegetable transplant production company, where seeds are started indoors and later moved to fields. It was owned by two venture capitalists, and he worked his way up from dropping seeds in the soil to operating machines and supervising. By 1994 he had invested $15,000 of his savings to buy shares in the company, and he ultimately became its president.

oday he and his partner, Adrian Espinoza, 36, a first-generation Mexican-American, have invested $1.4 million of their own money into the flower company.

The majority of Hispanic-owned agricultural businesses are family-run like Mr. Vasquez’s; he employs his daughters to help him run the business. Jose R. Fernandez, the president of Fernandez Brothers, a strawberry grower for Naturipe Farms in Salinas, whose clients include Stop and Shop, Costco and Safeway, expects his 19-year-old son to go into the business.

Some of the younger, second- or third-generation Hispanics entering the industry have advanced degrees in agriculture or business.

“First-generation farmworkers have worked their way up in terms of responsibility, and now we see many of their children going on to have the opportunity to pursue higher education,” said Charles Boyer, the dean of the Jordan College of Agricultural Sciences and Technology at California State University, Fresno. “These people are increasingly seeing that agriculture has a very wide window of opportunity from the business side to the quality-control side to the science side.” Mr. Espinoza, of Rancho Espinoza, graduated from Fresno State with a degree in plant science.

While more Hispanics are running farms, many of them in the region say federal immigration policies have made it increasingly difficult to find workers. Mr. Vasquez, the berry grower, said 12 acres on his farm were not harvested last year because of the lack of labor. “That’s an incredible loss,” he said. Mr. Silva, the calla lily grower in Salinas, said he supported guest-worker programs that allowed seasonal workers to come into the country legally.

Perhaps because of their own backgrounds, many of the farmers prided themselves on treating their workers well. Mr. Flores, the flower distributor in Watsonville, said he was looking into retirement plans for his workers. He showed off a neat canteen area that included an altar with Catholic symbols like the Virgin Mary, coffee makers and a grill still greasy from the meat that had been cooked on it that day.

Much of the growth in Hispanic-operated farms around the country has been concentrated in small and midsize farms. Some small-scale farmers are hoping that the increased popularity of organic produce will also increase revenue.

Francisco Serrano, 52, used to administer 200 acres of industrial farmland before scaling down to a much smaller organic farm in Watsonville where he grows produce like kale and beets. Mr. Serrano, who tired of the grueling hours at the industrial farm, is leasing 11 acres from a local nonprofit organization called the Agriculture and Land-Based Training Association, or ALBA, which trains mostly Latino students how to become organic farmers.

Like many farmers, Mr. Serrano rents the land because it is cheaper to do so. An acre in this region can cost an average of $40,000. He said the recession had complicated the plans of Hispanic farmers he knew, with some who tried to buy land losing both their homes and land. By contrast, farmers like Mr. Silva are hoping investing in land has a big payoff.

Mr. Silva recently secured a line of credit to purchase an additional 10.26 acres and greenhouses worth $1.3 million. On a recent weekday afternoon, a bouquet of calla lilies in shades of deep purple and hot pink sat on Mr. Silva’s desk. “I just pray like hell that I can make it work,” he said.

Link to story

By Dennis L. Taylor

In the first of its kind in the state, an accord has been hammered out between the Monterey County Agricultural Commissioner and a Salinas farm-worker advocacy group to form a panel that will jointly tackle issues such as worker safety and pesticide protection.

The accord is important in both historical and future contexts. Historically, agricultural commissioners and farm-worker groups have not been exactly simpatico. But by striking this accord and forming a Farmworker Advisory Committee attached to the commissioner’s office, the hope is the future will see more collaboration than conflict.

In the past, issues such as farm-worker exposure to pesticides were settled often by acrimonious lawsuits brought by organizations such as the Center for Community Advocacy, the grass-roots farm-worker advocacy group that joined with Agricultural Commissioner Eric Lauritzen to forge the advisory committee.

At the event announcing the pact, there were even moments of levity.

“In 1974, fresh out of college, I came down here to fight growers … like Jim Bogart,” said Juan Uranga, the executive director and lead attorney for CCA, nodding toward the president of the Salinas-based Grower-Shipper Association, who attended the media conference. Bogart, laughing, noted that his board of directors unanimously supported the formation of the advisory committee.

“This is a new era where we focus on commonalities and building the kind of relationships we have now that lead to forming a farm-worker advisory committee,” Uranga said at the conference at the Agricultural Center in Salinas, which houses the commissioner’s office.

In addition to Bogart, the news conference was attended by Chris Reardon, the chief deputy director of the California Department of Pesticide Regulation. Flanking Uranga and Lauritzen were a score of staff members who will compose the advisory committee.

“The advisory committee gives us direct access to farm-worker leaders, to their concerns and to their suggestions,” Lauritzen said. “This gives us the opportunity to engage in positive, productive conversations that will help us fulfill our obligations to the farm-worker community and to the agricultural industry in general.”

One of the committee members is Teo Gonzalez, the chief deputy agricultural commissioner, whose personal story makes him an ideal fit to serve on the committee. Twenty-six years ago Gonzalez was picking lettuce in the Salinas Valley. He earned a degree in agricultural economics from Universidad Autónoma de Chapingo in Mexico City and his green card to work in the United States.

“I talked to my father about coming here, and he told me to go for it,” Gonzalez said after the press conference. “I didn’t know the language but I had my hands.”

Eventually Gonzalez worked up the nerve to walk into Lauritzen’s office, unannounced, and ask for a job. Three months later he was offered a position. That was 14 years ago.

Gonzalez said he hopes the first goal of the committee will be to “establish a baseline for communication.” It’s important, he said, to have clear answers to the questions, “Why are we here and what do we want to accomplish?” – a foundation for action.

The first building block to that foundation is a statement of purpose, worked out between the CCA and the vommissioner’s office, with four key goals:

• To meet at regular intervals with the commissioner and staff to exchange information and ideas to improve the safety of farm workers.

• To help disseminate safety information for the commissioner’s office to farm workers.

• To host annual forums to discuss the commissioner’s jurisdiction over agricultural lands in the county.

• To promote a more sustainable agricultural economy by protecting its most critical resource: farm workers.

With a turbulent history in the Salinas Valley dating back to Cesar Chavez and his United Farm Worker movement in the 1960s and ’70s, and again with the passing of Proposition 187 in 1994 that was seen by many as a racist prohibition preventing undocumented workers from receiving health care, public education or social services, a basic distrust of government and the agricultural industry became grounded in farm-worker culture.

Paulina Mejia, an agricultural inspector and biologist with the Agricultural Commissioner’s office and a member of the advisory committee, said following the press conference Tuesday that one of her immediate goals is to forge trusting relationships with farm workers.

“When I’m out in the fields, there’s a hesitation when we drive up in county trucks,” Mejia said. “Many farm workers don’t understand we are here to help them. I want to ensure they are comfortable enough to approach us.”

Link to story

WASHINGTON, August 18, 2014 – Today, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) released its annual report, Expenditures on Children and Families, also known as the Cost of Raising a Child. The report shows that a middle-income family with a child born in 2013 can expect to spend about $245,340 ($304,480 adjusted for projected inflation*) for food, housing, childcare and education, and other child-rearing expenses up to age 18. Costs associated with pregnancy or expenses occurred after age 18, such as higher education, are not included.

While this represents an overall 1.8 percent increase from 2012, the percentages spent on each expenditure category remain the same. As in the past, the costs by location are lower in the urban South ($230,610) and rural ($193,590) regions of the country. Families in the urban Northeast incurred the highest costs to raise a child ($282,480).

“In today’s economy, it’s important to be prepared with as much information as possible when planning for the future,” said USDA Food, Nutrition and Consumer Services Under Secretary Kevin Concannon. “In addition to giving families with children an indication of expenses they might want to be prepared for, the report is a critical resource for state governments in determining child support guidelines and foster care payments.”

The report, issued annually, is based on data from the federal government’sConsumer Expenditure Survey, the most comprehensive source of information available on household expenditures. For the year 2013, annual child-rearing expenses per child for a middle-income, two-parent family ranged from $12,800 to $14,970, depending on the age of the child.

The report, developed by the USDA Center for Nutrition Policy and Promotion (CNPP), notes that family income affects child-rearing costs. A family earning less than $61,530 per year can expect to spend a total of $176,550 (in 2013 dollars) on a child from birth up to age 18. Middle-income** parents with an income between $61,530 and $106,540 can expect to spend $245,340; and a family earning more than $106,540 can expect to spend $407,820.

“Food is among the top three expenses in raising children,” said CNPP Executive Director Angela Tagtow. “Parents have the challenge of providing food that is not only healthful and delicious, but also affordable. We have great resources such asChooseMyPlate.gov that features tips to help families serve nutritious and affordable meals. I encourage parents to check out our Healthy Eating On a Budgetresources, 10-Tips Nutrition Series, recipes, and MyPlate Kids’ Place, which features digital games for kids to get engaged themselves in healthy eating.”

For middle-income families, housing costs are the single largest expenditure on a child, averaging 30 percent of the total cost. Child care and education was the second largest expense at 18 percent, followed by food, which accounted for 16 percent of the total cost.

“Variations by geographic region are marked when we look at housing, for example,” said study author and CNPP economist Mark Lino, Ph.D. “The average cost of housing for a child up to age 18 is $87,840 for a middle-income family in the urban West, compared to $66,240 in the urban South, and $70,200 in the urban Midwest. It’s interesting to note that other studies are showing that families are increasingly moving to these areas of the country with lower housing cost.”

In 1960, the first year the report was issued, a middle-income family could have expected to spend $25,230 ($198,560 in 2013 dollars) to raise a child until the age of 18. Housing was the largest child-rearing expense both then and now. Health care expenses for a child have doubled as a percentage of total child-rearing costs during that time. In addition, some common current-day costs, such as child care, were negligible in 1960.

Expenses per child decrease as a family has more children. Families with three or more children spend 22 percent less per child than families with two children. As families have more children, the children can share bedrooms, clothing and toys can be handed down to younger children, food can be purchased in larger and more economical quantities, and private schools or child care centers may offer sibling discounts.

The full report, Expenditures on Children by Families, 2013, is available on the web at www.cnpp.usda.gov. In addition, families can enter the number and ages of their children to obtain an estimate of costs with a calculator via the interactive web version of the report.

Link to news release

By Alexandra Witze and Nature Magazine

Peter Moyle has seen a lot in five decades of roaming California’s streams and rivers and gathering data on the fish that live in them. But last month he saw something new: tributaries of the Navarro River, which rises in vineyards before snaking through a redwood forest to the Pacific, had dried up completely.

“They looked in July like they normally look in September or October, at the end of the dry season,” says Moyle, a fish biologist at the University of California, Davis.

Blame the drought. The Navarro and its hard-pressed inhabitants are just one example of stresses facing a parched state. From the towering Sierra Nevada mountains — where the snowpack this May was only 18% of the average — to the broad Sacramento–San Joaquin river delta, the record-setting drought is reshaping California’s ecosystems.

It is also giving researchers a glimpse of the future. California has always had an extreme hydrological cycle, with parching droughts interrupted by drenching Pacific storms (see ‘Extreme hydrology’). But scientists say that the current drought — now in its third year — holds lessons for what to expect 50 years from now.

“The west has always gone through this, but we’ll be going through it at perhaps a more rapid cycle,” says Mark Schwartz, a plant ecologist and director of the John Muir Institute of the Environment at the University of California, Davis. He and others are discussing the drought’s ecological consequences at the annual meeting of the Ecological Society of America, which runs from August 10 to 15 in Sacramento, California. He says that the state’s plant and animal species are at risk in part because California ecosystems are already highly modified and vulnerable to a variety of stresses.

Many of the state’s 129 species of native inland fish, including several types of salmon, are listed by federal or state agencies under various levels of endangerment. “We’re starting from a pretty low spot,” says Moyle. He hopes to use the current drought to explore where native fish have the best chances of surviving.

That could be in dammed streams such as Putah Creek near the Davis campus, where water flow can be controlled to optimize native fish survival. Another focus might be on spring-fed streams such as those that flow down from volcanic terrain in northernmost California and can survive drought much longer than snow-fed streams.

In the late 1970s, Moyle discovered that native fish in the Monterey Bay watershed recolonized their streams relatively quickly after a two-year drought. But today’s streams face greater ecological pressures, such as more dams and more non-native species competing for habitat.

Other challenges arise in the delta where the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers meet, north-east of San Francisco. An invasive saltwater clam (Potamocorbula amurensis) has taken advantage of warming river waters and moved several kilometres upriver, says Janet Thompson, an aquatic ecologist with the US Geological Survey (USGS) in Menlo Park, California.

Potamocorbula out-competes a freshwater clam (Corbicula fluminea), and accumulates about four times as much of the element selenium from agricultural run-off and refineries as its freshwater cousin does. When endangered sturgeon feed on Potamocorbula, the fish consume much more selenium than is optimal. “That’s the biggest shift that we’ve seen that’s of environmental concern,” says Thompson. “These are the kinds of things that can have a lasting effect on a predator species.”

Teasing out the drought’s effects on terrestrial animals is tougher. Researchers have documented drops in various California bird populations this year, such as mallard ducks (Anas platyrynchos) and tricolor blackbirds (Agelaius tricolor). But many other factors — especially habitat loss — also come into play, so it becomes hard to isolate the effects of drought.

The drought’s effects on larger animals such as bears are also uncertain. Anecdotal reports suggest that more bears than usual are showing up closer to people this year, says Jason Holley, a wildlife biologist at the California Department of Fish and Wildlife in Rancho Cordova. Within the space of six weeks this spring, four black bears appeared along the Sacramento River corridor, much farther out of the mountains than normal. “Those sorts of calls definitely pique your interest,” says Holley, who thinks that dry conditions in the mountains might be pushing bears closer to populated areas.

The longest-lasting effect could be on California’s forests, including its iconic giant sequoias. The drought has handed forest ecologists an unplanned experiment, says Phillip van Mantgem, a forestry expert at the USGS in Arcata, California, who is speaking at the Sacramento meeting.

Researchers are gathering data to examine whether thinning of plots in the forest, in part to reduce fire risk, might help trees do better under drought. Tests may also help to reveal the main mechanisms by which drought kills different tree species, whether by interrupting the flow of water within the tree or by starving it. “I’m really curious to see how this turns out,” van Mantgem says.

There should be plenty of time to gather data. Climatologists expect an El Niño weather pattern to form in the Pacific this year, which usually brings more rain and snow to parts of California (see Nature 508, 20–21; 2014). But the pending El Niño looks to be weaker than first expected, and may not have much, if any, influence on ending the drought. Chances are that the state will remain dry well into 2015.

Link to story

By Alan Bjerga

For more than 70 years, Fred Starrh’s family was among the most prominent cotton growers in California’s San Joaquin Valley. Then shifting global markets and rising water prices told him that wouldn’t work anymore.

So he replaced most of the cotton plants on his farm near Shafter, 120 miles northwest of Los Angeles, and planted almonds, which make more money per acre and are increasingly popular with consumers in Asia.

“You can’t pay $1,000 an acre-foot to grow cotton,” said Starrh, 85, crouching to inspect a drip irrigator gently gurgling under an almond tree.

Such crop switching is one sign of a sweeping transformation going on in California — the nation’s biggest agricultural state by value — driven by a three-year drought that climate scientists say is a glimpse of a drier future. The result will affect everything from the price of milk in China to the source of cherries eaten by Americans. It has already inflamed competition for water between farmers and homeowners.

Growers have adapted to the record-low rainfall by installing high-technology irrigation systems, watering with treated municipal wastewater and even recycling waste from the processing of pomegranates to feed dairy cows. Some are taking land out of production altogether, bulldozing withered orange trees and leaving hundreds of thousands of acres unplanted.

There will be some definite changes, probably structural changes, to the entire industry” as drought persists, said American Farm Bureau Federation President Bob Stallman. “Farmers have made changes. They’ve shifted. This is what farmers do.”

In the long term, California will probably move away from commodity crops produced in bulk elsewhere to high-value products that make more money for the water used, said Richard Howitt, a farm economist at the University of California at Davis. The state still has advantages in almonds, pistachios and wine grapes, and its location means it will always be well-situated to export what can be profitably grown.

That may mean less farmland in production as growers abandon corn and cotton because of the high cost of water. Corn acreage in California has dropped 34 percent from last year, and wheat is down 53 percent, according to the USDA.

Cotton planting, Fred Starrh’s one-time mainstay, has fallen 60 percent over the decade, while almonds are up by more than half.

On its own, California would be the world’s ninth-largest agricultural economy, according to a University of California at Davis study. Shifts in its production reverberate globally, said Dan Sumner, another agricultural economist at the school.

“It’s a really big deal,” Sumner said. “Some crops simply grow better here than anyplace else, and our location gives us access to markets you don’t have elsewhere.”

The success of California agriculture was built in large part on advances in irrigation that allowed the state to expand beyond wheat, which flourishes in dry climates. It’s now the U.S.’s top dairy producer and grows half the country’s fruits, vegetables and nuts.

“Water has allowed us to grow more valuable crops,” Sumner said. “Now, we have fruits and vegetables and North Dakota grows our wheat. Without irrigation, we’d be North Dakota.”

An estimated 82 percent of California is experiencing extreme drought, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor. Agriculture has been hard hit as it consumes about four-fifths of the water that isn’t set aside for environmental preservation. Some farmers are paying as much as 10 times more for water than what it cost before the drought.

Another dry year in 2015 is a strong possibility, according to a study by the University of California at Davis released last month. The same study pegs drought-related farm losses at $1.5 billion, with 17,100 jobs lost statewide.

Groups such as the California Citrus Mutual and California Farm Bureau Federation have been calling for bigger allocations from the state’s watersheds for agriculture, asking the state to add storage capacity and ease environmental regulations that set aside water to preserve endangered species.

California Governor Jerry Brown last week called for a $6 billion “no frills” bond measure for this November’s election to boost water storage, a key demand of farmers that’s smaller than what some groups want.

That puts the farmers on a collision course with environmentalists and urban advocates who say some choices — such as a switch to almonds — could worsen the scarcity.

California grows four-fifths of the world’s almonds, much of it for overseas markets. That has pushed the price up to more than $3 a pound, a record that has encouraged farmers to divert water from other crops.

Almonds use enough water to supply 75 percent of the state’s population, according to Carolee Krieger, president and executive director of the California Water Impact Network, which supports bigger supplies for cities. Much of the crop is exported, meaning it isn’t even feeding Californians, she said.

“Farmers should be profitable, but it can’t come at the expense of urban water ratepayers,” she said.

The U.S. Interior Department’s Bureau of Reclamation, which supplies water to a third of the state’s irrigated farmland, cut off California water distribution to some areas, while leaving others with 75 percent or less of their normal allocation.

Shawn Stevenson, who grows 1,200 acres of orange and olive trees outside Fresno, is in a zero-allocation area.

Unable to obtain affordable water for his trees, he hired a bulldozer to uproot about 400 acres of orange trees. He called his farm the “canary in the coal mine” for California agriculture, part of the 500,000 acres being abandoned this year, according to the University of California at Davis.

“We’re going to deliver 25 percent of our volume this year,” Stevenson said over the crunch of bulldozed branches. “That impacts the packing house, the people who sell the fruit, the people that we buy pesticides and fertilizers from.”

“If this persists in the next year, the devastation we will see here and across the state will be biblical.”

Faced with chronic dryness, farmers have been figuring out ways to adapt. Starrh’s drip-irrigation system was pioneered in Israel and is now widely employed across California, cutting water use by supplying plants with smaller, targeted amounts.

“Farmers have done a remarkable job, scrambling around to get every piece of water they can,” Sumner, the University of California economist, said. “They’ve taken water out of rice, out of alfalfa and moved it into onions and carrots and kept the trees and vines alive.”

Will Terry grows peppers and strawberries in Ventura County, a region 60 miles west of Los Angeles that produces about $700 million of the fruit annually. The farm he runs with his father now uses about two-thirds of the water it used 20 years ago.

“People will try to grow the same things, but they’ll have to change how they do it,” said Terry as workers draped string across fields with which to hold up pepper plants.

Brad Scott, a dairy producer near Riverside in the Los Angeles suburbs, supplies his farm with treated municipal wastewater. The chlorine makes his ranch smell a bit like a swimming pool, but it has allowed his property to disconnect from the city water supply.

The disruption is worthwhile: Dairy prices reached an all-time high of $24.31 per hundred pound in April as export demand pushed dry-milk shipments to a record.

he drought has put special pressure on ranchers raising livestock, drying out pasture land and making it more costly to cool the herd by spraying the animals with water.

Brian Medeiros, a 26-year-old dairyman near Hanford, about 30 miles south of Fresno, is replacing the fields of corn and wheat he grows to feed his cows with sorghum and triticale, a heartier wheat and rye hybrid better suited for drought.

Medeiros drives past a shed containing almond hulls and distillers’ dried grains — the byproduct of ethanol and brewery production — and citrus pulp, all of which he buys from nearby vendors to feed his cows. Leftover pomegranate has been a herd mainstay, though less so as the consumer craze for anti-oxidants has faded, reducing the number of suppliers.

He’s also working with an engineer to create a cow-motion sensor. The system, deployed in his animal stalls, would change how animals are sprayed with water to keep them cool, ensuring that water only sprays while a cow is present.

“You have to look at everything,” Medeiros said between conversations in Portuguese with his father, who founded the farm, on his mobile phone.

A warmer climate is forcing Cindy Lashbrook to phase out cherries on the organic farm where she also grows walnuts, blueberries and other fruits and tree nuts near Merced, about 100 miles southeast of San Francisco.

Her cherries require 1,000 hours of temperatures under 45 degrees (7 degrees Celsius) between November and February, an amount her farm hasn’t seen for several years. “We don’t get the fog like we used to.”

Howitt, of the University of California, said the drought means the state’s farmers will have to permanently reduce water usage.

“California needs to rebalance its agricultural portfolio in response to this drought,” Howitt said. “You will see more fallowing of land. We have to reduce our water footprint.”

That means drip-fed trees for Starrh, a cotton-grower since when his family arrived on 30 acres in 1936 who now focuses on nuts.

And solar panels.

The Starrhs are leasing 480 acres to a sustainable-energy company on land that may never be watered again.

“It was good land for production,” he said. “But reality dictates.”

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By Don Curlee

Counting the ways farming in California differs from farming in the rest of the country might result in some surprises, especially for proud Californians.

To begin with, farms in California are about 25 percent smaller on average than those in the rest of the country. The contrast between farming here and farming there is even more remarkable when you consider that the state’s smaller farms outpace those in the rest of the country by producing almost five times the dollar amount per acre. Of course, that means farmers in the Golden State receive more income than those elsewhere.

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