Tag Archive for: Agriculture

Sierra Snowpack is Already “Wiped Out” This Year, Adding to California Drought and Fire Worries

/in , , /by /San Francisco Chronicle by Kellie Hwang

The Sierra Nevada snowpack, a crucial water source for California’s cities and farms, has already dwindled to next to nothing this year, adding to the state’s worsening drought situation.

The latest data from the state Department of Water Resources on Tuesday showed California’s snowpack was just 6% of normal for May 11, and 4% of the normal average for April 1. That date is typically when California’s snowpack is the deepest and has the highest snow water equivalent — the depth of water that would result if the snow melted upon falling.

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Farmers Grapple with Implications of Water Cuts

/in , /by /AgAlertby Christine Souza

In water-stressed farming areas of California, farmers removed productive trees and idled other land to divert what little water they have to other crops, as the reality of the 2021 drought became ever more apparent.

“We’re removing 15-year-old, prime-production almond trees,” said Daniel Hartwig of Woolf Farming in Fresno County. “We’re pulling out almost 400 acres, simply because there’s not enough water in the system to irrigate them, and long term, we have no confidence that there would be water in the future.”

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In California’s Farm Country, Climate Change Is Likely to Trigger More Pesticide Use, Fouling Waterways

/in , /by /Inside Climate Newsby Liza Gross

Every spring, California farmers brace themselves for signs of wriggling organisms destined to launch multigenerational attacks on their crops.

Many insect species survive the winter as eggs or larvae and then emerge in early spring as the first generation to feed and breed on millions of acres of California vineyards, orchards and row crops. Climate change will complicate farmers’ efforts to control these pests in complex and unpredictable ways.

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Newsom Extends Drought Emergency to 41 California Counties

/in , , /by /Los Angeles Timesby Faith E. Pinho

In a stark indication of California’s growing water crisis, Gov. Gavin Newsom on Monday declared a drought emergency in 41 counties, including areas of the Central Valley that had urged action on behalf of agricultural growers.

Newsom’s proclamation dramatically expands the drought emergency he declared in Sonoma and Mendocino counties last month, and now covers 30% of the state’s population.

“With the reality of climate change abundantly clear in California, we’re taking urgent action to address acute water supply shortfalls in Northern and Central California while also building our water resilience to safeguard communities in the decades ahead,” Newsom said in a prepared statement. “We’re working with local officials and other partners to protect public health and safety and the environment, and call on all Californians to help meet this challenge by stepping up their efforts to save water.”

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How ‘Sustainable’ is California’s Groundwater Sustainability Act?

/in , /by /High Country Newsby Nick Bowlin

Beneath the almond and citrus fields of the San Joaquin Valley lies an enormous system of aquifers that feeds some of the world’s most productive farmland. Hundreds of miles north and east, along the Nevada border, is the Surprise Valley, a remote, high-desert region undergirded by cone-shaped hollows of sediment that hold deposits of water. Both of these water systems, along with every other groundwater basin in California — a whopping 515 entities — must create individually tailored plans to manage their water use more sustainably. In scale and ambition, California’s Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA) has few parallels. And the work becomes increasingly urgent as the climate crisis makes water shortages increasingly severe.

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As Surface Water Supplies Dry Up, California Rice Growers Worry About Ripple Effect

/in , , /by /CBS Sacramentoby Rachel Wulff

California’s drought is impacting more than how you water your lawn, but also the way your food is grown on hundreds of thousands of acres in the Sacramento Valley.

Growing rice is a multi-billion dollar industry that supports 25,00 jobs.

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Reclamation Halts Water Deliveries to Northern Calif. Farmers

/in , , /by /The San Joaquin Valley Sunby Alex Tavlian

More than a month after announcing it was suspending water deliveries to farmers on the west side of the San Joaquin Valley, the Bureau of Reclamation delivered equally bad news to farmers north of the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta.

Their water supplies, tabbed at 5 percent of their contracted amount, were not available for delivery via the Central Valley Project due to limited supply.

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Opinion: There is No Drought

/in , , /by /Los Angeles Times by The Times Editorial Board

Gov. Gavin Newsom declared a drought emergency last month in Sonoma and Mendocino counties because of severe drop-offs in the winter rains that once had been counted on to fill reservoirs in the Russian River watershed, north of the San Francisco Bay Area. Like most other California reservoirs, those human-made lakes were built in the 20th century, an unusually wet period when compared with more than a thousand years of climate records reconstructed from studies of ancient tree rings and geological evidence.

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Fish or Farmers? Newsom Drought Declaration Would Trigger New War Over California Water

/in , , /by /The Sacramento Beeby Dale Kasler and Ryan Sabalow

When a bipartisan group of state legislators held a press conference last week to demand that Gov. Gavin Newsom declare a statewide drought emergency, they assembled at a withered farm field east of Fresno, complete with piles of dead trees in the background.

The choice was no accident. With California already experiencing drought-like conditions, Central Valley farmers and their elected representatives are the ones putting the most political pressure on Newsom to make it official.

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California Senate Proposes to Spend $3.4 Billion on Drought

/in , , /by /AP Newsby Adam Beam

Mired in yet another drought that threatens drinking water, endangered species of fish and the state’s massive agriculture industry, Democrats in the California Senate on Thursday detailed a $3.4 billion proposal designed to gird the state for a new crisis on the heels of a deadly and disruptive pandemic.

The proposal would equal all of the state’s combined spending during the previous drought, which lasted from 2012 to 2016, according to the Legislative Analyst’s Office. That drought occurred after the Great Recession, when California routinely battled multibillion-dollar budget deficits and struggled to pay for state services.

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