California Farmers Brace for Drought and Unemployment
Amid California's driest year on record... One-third of the Central Valley's jobs are related to farming. Strains on water supplies are expected to force farmers to leave fields unplanted, creating a ripple effect on food processing plant workers, truck drivers and those who sell fertilizer, irrigation equipment and tractors...
The ripple effect of drought extends to the trucking companies that haul crops, tire companies that outfit the big rigs and fuel suppliers who provide diesel, he said. Employees at John Deere world headquarters in Moline, Ill., will feel repercussions from drought in California, the biggest agricultural producer, he said. So will the businesses that make cardboard boxes to hold cantaloupes and the wooden pallets for stacking the boxes, Malanca said. The list goes on..
A 2012 study by the Agricultural Issues Center at the University of California, Davis, found that farming and food processing industries created nearly 38 percent of all Central Valley jobs. Every 100 farm and processing jobs create work for another 92 people, said the report, which measured agriculture's impact on the state's economy.
Fresno County led the nation in farming in 2012, generating nearly $6.6 billion in economic activity... With no surface water for farmers, he anticipates that up to 25 percent of irrigated field and orchards in the county will lay unplanted.
This time of year, farmers start to plant tomatoes... among some 400 variety of crops grown in Fresno County. Farmers may have no choice but to rip out permanent crops, such as almond orchards and vineyards that take years to mature, or let them dry up with no irrigation...
In a good year, Chuck Herrin, owner of Sunrise Farm Labor, based in Huron, puts between 1,000 to 3,500 people to work. He said he will be lucky to hire 600 at the season's peak, installing drip irrigation systems, planting and harvesting crops...
____________
Related article:
Scientists: Past California droughts have lasted 200 years, MSN News, February 1, 2014
California's current drought is being billed as the driest period in the state's recorded rainfall history. But scientists who study the West's long-term climate patterns say the state has been parched for much longer stretches before that 163-year historical period began.
And they worry that the "megadroughts" typical of California's earlier history could come again...
Through studies of tree rings, sediment and other natural evidence, researchers have documented multiple droughts in California that lasted 10 or 20 years in a row during the past 1,000 years — compared to the mere three-year duration of the current dry spell. The two most severe megadroughts make the Dust Bowl of the 1930s look tame: a 240-year-long drought that started in 850 and, 50 years after the conclusion of that one, another that stretched at least 180 years...
California in 2013 received less rain than in any year since it became a state in 1850. And at least one Bay Area scientist says that based on tree ring data, the current rainfall season is on pace to be the driest since 1580...
California, the nation's most populous state with 38 million residents, has built a massive economy...
Stine, who has spent decades studying tree stumps in Mono Lake, Tenaya Lake, the Walker River and other parts of the Sierra Nevada, said that the past century has been among the wettest of the last 7,000 years...
The longest droughts of the 20th century, what Californians think of as severe, occurred from 1987 to 1992 and from 1928 to 1934. Both, Stine said, are minor compared to the ancient droughts of 850 to 1090 and 1140 to 1320...
In an average year, farmers use 80 percent of the water consumed by people and businesses — 34 million of 43 million acre-feet diverted from rivers, lakes and groundwater, according to the state Department of Water Resources...
____________
Related article:
Severe Drought Has U.S. West Fearing Worst, Adam Nagourney and Ian Lovett, New York Times, February 1, 2014
The punishing drought that has swept California is now threatening the state’s drinking water supply.
With no sign of rain, 17 rural communities providing water to 40,000 people are in danger of running out within 60 to 120 days. State officials said that the number was likely to rise in the months ahead after the State Water Project, the main municipal water distribution system, announced on Friday that it did not have enough water to supplement the dwindling supplies of local agencies that provide water to an additional 25 million people. It is first time the project has turned off its spigot in its 54-year history.
Related Coverage
State reservoir levels are lower in California than they were at this time in 1977, the last time the state endured a drought this severe.
Parched, California Cuts Off Tap to AgenciesJAN. 31, 2014
State officials said they were moving to put emergency plans in place. In the worst case, they said drinking water would have to be brought by truck into parched communities and additional wells would have to be drilled to draw on groundwater...
CAIRCO Notes
Since California's Central Valley agricultural industry can no longer employ huge numbers of cheap illegal alien laborers, perhaps those aliens will now return to their home countries to reuinte with their families.
At this juncture it is clear that California's bread basket can no longer deliver the agricultural produce required by a growing US population. This situation may well become the permanent state of affairs.
Yet the Republican leadership continues to aid and abet Democrats in trying to give legalization / amnesty to illegal aliens in the United States - which will draw in more illegal aliens - which will in turn mount pressure for another amnesty.
More people and less food sounds like a recipie for disaster.