The proverbial “good news-bad news” scenario presents itself this week with indications that the California drought may not cost the agriculture industry as much as was believed. The industry will reportedly incur less than half the losses forecast in March as groundwater supplies have eased the burden on farmers and ranchers. The California Farm Water Coalition said losses are expected to reach $3.4 billion for farming and related activity (trucking and shipping), far below the predicted $7.8 billion.
Less land than expected will remained parched as the state pumped more water from aquifers and farmers received some unexpected deliveries from state and federal water projects.
“It’s good news, but it doesn’t mean there isn’t going to be an impact,” said Mike Wade this week, executive director of the California Farm Water Coalition. “It’s a misleading improvement because we’re relying on groundwater.” Wade’s group has cut its estimate of fallowed land from 800,000 acres in March down to the present tally of 410,000 acres laid fallow in the current growing season because of the dry weather.
However, the drought is expected to cost the state 14,500 jobs at a cost of $1.7 billion, according to a study conducted by the U.C. Davis Center for Watershed Sciences. The study found that Central Valley irrigators will get only one-third (35 percent) of their normal water deliveries; farmers may have to replace that water with groundwater at an unexpected cost of about $450 million. The study indicated that some 6,400 of those lost jobs will affect workers directly involved in harvesting crops.
“These estimates will help the state better understand the economic impacts of the drought and target its drought relief,” said Karen Ross, secretary of the California Department of Food and Agriculture. “The research confirms where emergency drought assistance will be needed most.”
The agricultural losses may extend further into state coffers. California’s gross domestic product is expected to decline by almost $855 million from the yearly $1.9 trillion because of drought impacts; household income may fall by as much as $555 million as it relates to lost jobs, higher grocery prices and increased sales tax.
California’s Central Valley is one of the world’s most productive agricultural regions, but the drought has laid fallow about six percent of this land. Farmers and ranchers have done everything from leaving fields unplanted, shipping livestock to the midwest for better grazing and even testing “divining rods” to find precious water.
“I’ve never gone through a year like this with cutbacks like this and uncertainty,” Nicole Van Vleck told CBS News this week. She’s grown rice near Yuba City for decades and expects that her part of the Central Valley will lose about 100,000 acres of rice crops this year. The area normally produces rice within an estimated 500,000 acres of irrigated land.
It remains uncertain how much the drought will affect national food prices as the state produces about half of America’s produce, dairy products and nuts; California is also a major supplier of beef, chicken and seafood products.
