A third year of severe drought forced California farmers to leave an estimated 752,000 acres of farmland idle this year, according to a new report.
In the fall, rice fields in the Sacramento Valley usually shine golden brown as they await harvesting. This year, however, many fields were left covered with bare dirt.
Rice grower Don Bransford stands in an irrigated field near the city of Williams in the Sacramento Valley, in this 2013 photo. “The severity of the ongoing drought has been unprecedented for the Sacramento Valley,” said Josué Medellín-Azuara, a water resources economist and associate professor of civil and environmental engineering at UC Merced. “It’s been more severe over the past year, and you have the cumulative effects of the previous dry years.”
Gross crop revenues fell $1.7 billion, or 4.6%, this year. Revenues of the state’s food processing and manufacturing industries declined nearly $3.5 billion, or 7.8%.“Those farmworkers suffer the most during the droughts,” Medellín-Azuara said. The amount of farmland left dry this year surpassed the peak of fallowed land during California’s last drought from 2012 to 2016.
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