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.”

Link to story

 

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.

Link to story

The Growing California video series, a partnership between CDFA and California Grown produced in association with California State University, Sacramento, has been recognized with three 2014 Telly Awards, a video competition now in its 35th year. Growing California also won three Tellys in 2013.

Two of the segments that won, “Blossom Buddies (parts 1 and 2)” and “From Service to Harvest,” were honored in the category of Online Video – Information. The third video, “Onion Power,” was recognized in the category of Social Responsibility.

Growing California is an in-depth look at the many ways farming and ranching touches our lives – going beyond food production, although that is certainly featured prominently. The series also highlights food access, the diversity of California agriculture, and protection against invasive species. The winning videos are below.

About the Growing California video series.

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By Robert Rodriguez

Armed with magnifying glasses and bug-sucking aspirators, state agriculture technicians are in Fresno, checking residential citrus trees for any signs of the Asian citrus psyllid and the tree-killing disease it can carry.

The psyllid poses one of the greatest threats to California’s nearly $2 billion citrus industry and officials want to keep it from gaining a foothold in the central San Joaquin Valley.

Inspectors will spend several weeks in the Fresno area and then move into Tulare County — the largest citrus producer in the state.

“We don’t want this disease here,” said Cora Barrera, a state technician. “It would be a disaster.”

Barrera recently checked several trees at a home near Fresno Pacific University in southeast Fresno. Using her magnifying glass, she looked for tell-tale signs on the tree’s leaves: dull orange-yellow nymphs and the waxy tubules that push honeydew away from their body. She also looked for adult psyllids that are about 1/8 of an inch and brownish.

When Barrera finds a psyllid, she catches the insect using an aspirator and drops it into a glass tube. Any bugs caught will be tested for the disease.

A team of about six state technicians, including Barrera, will visit thousands of homes in the city.

Jennifer Romero, an environmental scientist with the California Department of Food and Agriculture, said that so far no psyllids have been found nor any sign of the disease they carry, huanglongbing, also known as citrus greening.

Citrus farmers fear the disease because there is no known cure. Infected trees produce bitter-tasting fruit and eventually die. In Florida, the nation’s orange juice capital, the disease has caused $1.3 billion in lost revenue over the past several years.

So far, the disease has only been found in one residential tree in the Hacienda Heights area of Southern California. But the psyllids have spread throughout the region, and a massive quarantine prohibits the movement of citrus fruit and trees out of the area.

Despite the regulatory net, the bug has hitchhiked its way to the Valley, having been caught in insect traps in Fresno and Tulare counties. To keep the psyllid in check, farmers have sprayed their groves and the state has treated residential trees where the psyllids have been caught.

A quarantine also has been put in place that covers 870 square miles of the Valley’s citrus belt.

But all that still isn’t enough, experts say. One key lesson learned from Florida’s losing battle with the disease is early detection and prevention.

Door-to-door residential inspections have been used in Southern California since the discovery of the disease in 2012.

Using a method developed by U.S. Department of Agriculture scientist Tim Gottwald, the survey targets specific areas with potential risk factors. The factors are many, but include proximity to commercial citrus groves, roads used by trucks transporting citrus and flea markets.

Experts say citrus trees at flea markets and swap meets are sold without the benefit of government inspection and should be avoided.

So far, the state’s inspectors have surveyed more than 1,000 homes in Fresno and hundreds more remain.

Romero said fortunately for the inspectors most residents don’t mind the visits.

“We really have not had any problems and it helps that people are aware of the disease,” she said. “They also don’t want to lose their own trees.”

If the resident isn’t home, the state will leave an information sheet about the bug and disease and information for setting up a future home visit.

Gene Hannon, entomologist with the Fresno County Department of Agriculture, urged owners of citrus trees to be vigilant about checking their own trees. He also said that people should avoid bringing home any citrus from the Southern California area; buying citrus trees at flea markets; or grafting trees from Southern California or any other region with the disease.

“The more people are aware, the better able we are to keep this disease out of our area,” Hannon said. “We don’t want to have this problem.”

 

Link to story

While in Mexico City last week, Governor Brown met with Secretary Navarrete Prida of the Mexican Ministry of Labor and Social Welfare and signed a letter of intent to address labor rights issues for temporary Mexican workers in California – a matter of high importance, of course, for California’s farmers and ranchers. Moving forward from that promising development, we are working to create a pilot program than connects at least one California agricultural employer with Mexican officials to establish a set of protocols. Our objective is to help curb migrant worker abuse on a national and international basis, and provide stronger assurances to California agricultural employers that migrant labor employed within a H-2A program are not subject to illegal fees, misrepresentation of employment terms, fraud and other issues.

California, the U.S. Department of Labor, and a network of cross border nongovernmental organizations would work with Mexico to establish a bi-nationally available register of certified labor recruitment agencies. In addition, Mexico would develop a system for monitoring, verifying and supervising the activities carried out by recruitment agencies. In California, the state would identify agricultural employers that voluntarily commit to using certified recruiters.

In the absence of a national immigration solution, This pilot program can be a great benefit to California’s agricultural community and strengthen our bi-lateral ties with Mexico.

By Jeffrey Mount and Jay Lund, UC Davis, and Emma Freeman, PPIC

Water in California is shared across three main sectors. Statewide, average water use is roughly 50% environmental, 40% agricultural, and 10% urban. However, the percentage of water use by sector varies dramatically across regions and between wet and dry years. Some of the water used by each of these sectors returns to rivers and groundwater basins, and can be used again.

Environmental water use falls into four categories: water in rivers protected as “wild and scenic” under federal and state laws, water required for maintaining habitat within streams, water that supports wetlands within wildlife preserves, and water needed to maintain water quality for agricultural and urban use. Most water allocated to the environment does not affect other water uses. More than half of California’s environmental water use occurs in rivers along the state’s north coast. These waters are largely isolated from major agricultural and urban areas and cannot be used for other purposes. In the rest of California where water is shared by all three sectors, environmental use is not dominant (33%, compared to 53% agricultural and 14% urban).

Agricultural water use is holding steady even while the economic value of farm production is growing. Approximately nine million acres of farmland in California are irrigated, representing roughly 80% of all human water use. Higher revenue perennial crops—nuts, grapes, and other fruit—have increased as a share of irrigated crop acreage (from 27% in 1998 to 32% in 2010 statewide, and from 33% to 40% in the southern Central Valley). This shift, plus rising crop yields, has increased the value of farm output (from $16.3 billion of gross state product in 1998 to $22.3 billion in 2010, in 2010 dollars), thereby increasing the value of agricultural water used. But even as the agricultural economy is growing, the rest of the economy is growing faster. Today, farm production and food processing only generate about 2% of California’s gross state product, down from about 5% in the early 1960s.

Despite population growth, total urban water use is also holding steady. The San Francisco Bay and South Coast regions account for most urban water use in California. These regions rely heavily on water imported from other parts of the state. Roughly half of urban water use is for residential and commercial landscaping. Despite population growth and urban expansion, total urban water use has remained roughly constant over the past 20 years. Per-capita water use has declined significantly—from 232 gallons per day in 1990 to 178 gallons per day in 2010—reflecting substantial efforts to reduce water use through pricing incentives and mandatory installation of water saving technologies like low-flow toilets and shower heads. Coastal regions use far less water per capita than inland regions—145 gallons per day compared with 276 gallons per day in 2010—largely because of less landscape watering.

The current drought exposes major water use challenges. In the Central Valley, where most agricultural water use occurs, the failure to manage groundwater sustainably limits its availability as a drought reserve. The increase in perennial crops—which need to be watered every year—has made the region even more vulnerable. In urban areas, the greatest potential for further water savings lies in reducing landscaping irrigation—a shift requiring behavioral changes, not just the adoption of new technology. Finally, state and federal regulators must make tough decisions about how and when to allocate water to the environment during a drought. They are faced with balancing short-term economic impacts on urban and agricultural water users against long-term harm—even risk of extinction—of fish and wildlife.

Link to item on PPIC web site

The latest segment in the Growing California video series, a partnership with California Grown, is “Wine Connections.”

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The annual National Farmers Market Week is being observed this week (August 3-9).  It’s a time worth celebrating because of the key role farmers’ markets play in connecting consumers to the people who produce their fresh fruits and vegetables. At a time when there is more interest and questions than ever before about the origins of food, these markets have the answers, thanks to producers with plenty of information to share with their customers. Additionally, many of the markets do outreach on nutrition, provide help with food access, where needed, and offer a great way for people to buy California Grown!

California leads the nation with more than 800 certified farmers markets, serving as venues for an estimated 2,200 certified agricultural producers selling high-quality produce directly to consumers. CDFA created the Certified Farmers Market Program in 1977—the first in the nation—to provide consumers with the assurance that they are buying directly from producers. In California, many of the markets operate year-round due to the availability of local produce.

Please join us in celebrating National Farmers’ Market Week by visiting a certified farmers’ market near you.

 

 

Antelope Valley Fair
8/15/2014 to 8/24/2014
Lancaster, CA

Butte County Fair
8/21/2014 to 8/24/2014
Gridley, CA

Eastern Sierra Tri-County Fair
8/28/2014 to 8/31/2014
Bishop, CA

Humboldt County Fair
8/13/2014 to 8/24/2014
Ferndale, CA

Inter-Mountain Fair of Shasta
8/29/2013 to 9/2/2013
McArthur, CA

Lake County Fair
8/28/2014 to 8/31/2014
Lakeport, CA

Los Angeles County Fair
8/29/2014 to 9/28/2014
Pomona, CA

Mariposa County Fair & Homecoming
8/29/2014 to 9/1/2014
Mariposa, CA

Modoc District Fair
8/22/2013 to 8/25/2013
Cedarville, CA

Monterey County Fair
8/27/2014 to 9/1/2014
Monterey, CA

Nevada County Fair
8/6/2014 to 8/10/2014
Grass Valley, CA

Orange County Fair
7/11/2014 to 8/10/2014
Costa Mesa, CA

Plumas-Sierra County Fair
8/13/2014 to 8/17/2014
Quincy, CA

Redwood Empire Fair
7/31/2014 to 8/3/2014
Ukiah, CA

Santa Clara County Fair
8/1/2014 to 8/4/2014
San Jose, CA

Siskiyou Golden Fair
8/6/2014 to 8/10/2014
Yreka, CA

Solano County Fair
7/30/2014 to 8/3/2014
Vallejo, CA

Sonoma County Fair & Exposition
7/24/2014 to 8/10/2014
Santa Rosa, CA

The Valley Fair
8/15/2014 to 8/26/2014
Lancaster, CA

Trinity County Fair
8/8/2014 to 8/10/2014
Hayfork, CA

Ventura County Fair
7/30/2014 to 8/10/2014
Ventura, CA

Yolo County Fair
8/13/2014 to 8/17/2014
Woodland, CA

Yuba-Sutter Fair
7/31/2014 to 8/3/2014
Yuba City, CA