Rural Issue

How drought is changing California agriculture

California’s extreme drought is entering its fifth year and it is devastating California’s agricultural economy.

Cannon Michael’s sixth generation family farm is in the heart of California’s Central Valley.  Because of the historical time Michael’s family farm has been in business, he is in a pre-1914 Water Rights Area and because of those rights, they haven’t had issues with access to surface water – until last year.  “With the lack of surface supplies we’ve had to not water crops as much,” he says.  “Even though our alfalfa acreage is down, normally you would cut the crop 7 times – but for example this year we will probably will cut it 6 or less times and last year we cut it 6 or less times, just to stretch the water supplies.”

Michael tells Brownfield his farm has never had to fallow land before – and last year they fallowed over 1,200 acres and this year they’ll fallow over 2,000 acres.

And he says the economic impacts of the drought go beyond the farmer.  “All of us are pushing the technology envelope as far as we can,” he says.  “We’re trying to cut the workforce as much as we can.  We have to eliminate jobs because jobs are costly.  We’re being as efficient as we can with everything we do so we are able to stay competitive.”

With all of the challenges facing agriculture in California, regulations included, he says he has concerns about the future of the industry.  “I don’t know – my future outlook for agriculture for myself is grim,” he says.  “I have three sons who could potentially be the seventh generation of our family to farm, but I don’t think at this point I don’t think I would necessarily encourage them to be a part of it.”

Michael grows primarily annual crops like tomatoes for processing and fresh sale, onions, melons, and sweet corn.