Valley's ag, water economics a conundrum

Published online on Monday, Jun. 29, 2009

The message from farmers is dramatic and direct: drought and federal water restrictions are crippling San Joaquin Valley agriculture -- and threaten America's food supply.

"This is a crisis, and it's a worsening crisis," said A.G. Kawamura, California's secretary of food and agriculture. "The federal government needs to understand this [will have] a major impact on America's food supply, on the nation's food security."

Yet even as growers fallow thousands of acres and lay off workers, farm employment in Fresno County is the highest in a decade -- and agricultural production hit a record value in 2008.

What's going on?

There's no fast and easy answer. Valley agriculture and water economics are too complex for that.

There are stark differences between the east and west sides of Fresno County alone.

In the vast reaches of the west side, sharp limits on water from the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta have forced growers to plant fewer acres and hire fewer workers. Unemployment rates are above 30% in towns like Mendota, Huron and San Joaquin. Packers and processors have closed as business dwindles.

But on the east side, farmers face fewer water cutbacks. More water means more work -- enough so far, apparently, to take up the slack being felt in the west.

Estimates from the state Employment Development Department show that through May, the number of farm jobs in Fresno County is higher than in any year since 2000.

The number of agricultural jobs in Fresno County averaged 42,100, or about one in eight jobs in the county. That's up 1,200 from the same period in 2008. The state collects figures only for the county as a whole.

Water deliveries cut

The sprawling Westlands Water District this year will receive only 10% of its contracted federal water allocation from the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta -- the lowest allocation in more than 30 years.

Pumping restrictions to protect the Delta smelt and salmon also make it hard for farmers to obtain surplus water from water districts north of the Delta. Instead, farmers must pump low-quality, salty ground water just to keep permanent crops such as almond trees alive. They need more and better water to produce a viable crop from those trees.

"I'm teetering on a pogo stick out here," said grower Shawn Coburn, who farms several thousand acres, including almonds and wine grapes, on the west side. "Without water, I'm done. ... The people who used to provide food for America can't provide food for themselves."

Farmers in Westlands will fallow more than 100,000 acres because of a lack of water, said Sarah Woolf, a spokeswoman for the district. That is nearly double the 55,000 acres fallowed in 2006, the last time Westlands received its full water allocation. The district encompasses about 600,000 acres, including about 100,000 that are permanently retired.

West-side grower John Harris said his farm payroll for the first six months of this year will be about $3.2 million -- a little over half what it was in 2007, when the current drought began.

"Were it not for ground water pumping and carryover water, these declines would have been even more dramatic," Harris said.

The decline in work has meant hardship for many families. In Firebaugh, local charities gave away about 1,500 boxes of food to needy families last week.

"If there wasn't a need, these people wouldn't be standing in line for hours," Firebaugh City Manager Jose Antonio Ramirez said. "It's embarrassing for them, but it's a necessity."

"Not everything happening out here is related to water, but the majority is," Ramirez said. "We were giving out food before, even when things were better, but maybe only about 300 boxes."