Friday, March 29, 2024

California dries up under growers’ feet

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Agriculture secretary says water shortage keeps her awake at night.
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Farmers and growers in California are operating on an apocalyptic stage, with forest fires and limited water supplies props in the state’s climate change nightmare.

California’s food and agriculture secretary Karen Ross told delegates at the Oceania 2035 summit that agriculture was suffering now under climate conditions that had not been anticipated for another 10-20 years.

“We realised after we had done the forecast that, going into the future, we will have lost 10% of our water due to increased rates of evapotranspiration.

“This is with plumbing [irrigation] built 60 years ago for half today’s population.”
Ross was in New Zealand for the summit and to co-sign a letter of intent between Californian producers and New Zealand to work together in developing climate change solutions and responses.

Ross’s state provides the United States with over a third of its fresh vegetables and is the country’s largest dairy producer. Over 400 food commodities are grown there, and California generates US$50 billion (about $89b) a year in farmgate value.

But forest fires and dwindling groundwater are hitting productivity hard in the state, which has faced lingering drought for several years.

The drought is now forcing strict groundwater laws into play to try to better manage aquifers. 

Estimates are that up to 400,000ha in the San Joaquin Valley alone will have to be idled as the law starts to affect growers.

“Water is the thing that keeps me awake at night,” Ross said.

Meantime the proliferation of wildfires is so great over the extended summer period that their smoke interferes with crop photosynthesis, with 30 days of constant smoke over July. 

“And that is nothing on what it does to human health.” 

Farm and horticultural workers face reduced hours in order to limit their exposure to the near constant presence of forest fire smoke.

The state aims to reduce its methane emissions to 40% below 2013 levels by 2030, with an equivalent emissions reduction target in place for the dairy and livestock sector.

“We are halfway to our goal to reduce methane in livestock systems. We have spent $US300 million in the last 10 years,” Ross said.

This has included significant investment in dairy digesters to handle farm effluent, removing methane and turning solids into compost.

Ross said the collaborative agreement with NZ signals a recognition that when it comes to climate change countries are not competing with each other, and stand to gain much by unifying their research and innovation efforts. 

The collaboration includes the giant grower group Western Growers, who represent growers throughout the US western states.

Western Growers director Dennis Donohue said the choice for producers is simple: “We can either let this happen to us, or we can be pro-active.”

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