Urban Urban Farmland Grown on Water: The Costs of Water, Water Restriction and the State of Coalinga, California

Miles of brittle, uprooted almond trees lay dead on their sides on parched farmland in Coalinga, California, as an intensifying drought, new restrictions and skyrocketing water prices are forcing farmers to sacrifice their crops. Residents are bracing for higher water bills as the precious resource disappears, and Roadside signs warn against watering front lawns.

The biggest concern is for the residents of Coalinga. It is the water residents use for life’s basic activities; to bathe, cook and clean. The state approved the city’s grant request to help pay for its million dollar water bill.

The restriction left Coalinga short about 600-acre feet of water through March 2023, which is nearly 200 million gallons, and the equivalent of about 300 Olympic-sized swimming pools.

With the city on track to run out of water by mid- to late November, officials turned to the increasingly expensive open market to make up the difference. They purchased from a California public irrigation district.

The cost for the city’s most basic necessity was close to a million dollars. Adkisson tells CNN the same amount of water used to cost $114,000.

The price of water in the state has gone from $200 to more than $1,000 in just one year according to the water index.

“I was just floored,” Adkisson said of their water purchase. “I could not believe they could sell water at that price — but that was actually a cheap rate, that’s the cheapest rate we found.”

“We are a very poor community,” Adkisson said. The people who are walking and driving by cannot afford a 1,000% increase in their water bills.

California’s soaring water prices are squeezing the farmers around Coalinga, too. The use of farmland has become too expensive to save water.

Farmers Deedee and Tom Gruber told CNN their water allocations have decreased to amounts insufficient to grow their 11 crops, which include thirsty walnuts and almonds. The walnuts the Grubers want to grow would require 40 thousand gallons of water a year.

California farmers say water scarcity, tightening water restrictions and now skyrocketing water prices are making it impossible for farmers to grow crops at all. The Grubers believe it will culminate in two ways: bankrupt farmers and higher food prices at the nation’s groceries.

From protests at the California’s state capitol this week to a living room full of worried farmers, California State Senator Melissa Hurtado, a Democrat who represents part of California’s southern Central Valley, has been listening to farmers’ stories about how drought and high water prices have affected them.

In an August letter, Hurtado and a bipartisan group of California legislators urged the US Justice Department to investigate “potential drought profiteering.” Hurtado suspects there could be price gouging in drought-stricken western states.

The Justice Department gave the complaint to the appropriate legal staff in October, after Hurtado wrote the letter. CNN was told that the agency wouldn’t be talking about what it might do.

California’s rice farms have been devastated by three consecutive years of drought and the Loss of billions of jobs as a result of massive floods

After years of drought, California has received an epic amount of rain already in 2023. While it was much-needed, the back-to-back heavy storms also ravaged the state for weeks, creating dangerous flooding and mudslides that led to at least 20 deaths and billions of dollars in economic losses, by some estimates.

The Sacramento Valley is the hub of California’s rice production. The sticky rice used in sushi in the US is most likely medium grain called Calrose, which comes from the Golden State. Nearly all of the nation’s sushi rice comes from California.

Growing rice – a semi-aquatic plant – requires an abundance of water. During the seed planting and growing season, which runs from March through August, farmers flood rice fields with up to five inches of water.

But three consecutive years of drought in the state have baked hundreds of thousands of acres of Sacramento Valley’s lush green rice paddies into dry barren land.

Rice crops contribute as much as $5 billion a year and tens of thousands of jobs to California’s economy. Last year, $750 million and more than 5,000 jobs were lost as rice farming and its allied activities stalled, according to the Commission.

Each year of the dry spell, the level of the dam fell to less than half of its historic average. For many rice farms, water allocations were stopped completely as the state- controlled water allocations was no longer guaranteed.

“This is a make it or break it year for many farmers and businesses in the industry. We’re really hoping the significant storms we’ve had since November will make the farm businesses and livelihood of farmers and the rural communities here more normal.”

He listed the ripple effects of it: “Farmers can’t farm, farms have lost employees, fuel and fertilizer businesses that help run the farms stopped making deliveries. Even the local restaurants have lost business,” he said.

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2023/02/16/business/california-rains-rice-farms/index.html

Greg Ponciano: The Case for Rice Farming in Sacramento, Calif., in the 2000-2003 Rainy Season and the First Rains

Greg Ponciano is mayor of Colusa, a city in Colusa County in the Sacramento region with about 6,000 residents, and it’s among the top rice producers in the state.

We are in the middle of rice country. The economy goes how the rice business goes. Three years of dry weather has broken the camel’s back.

Colusa County historically plants about 150,000 acres of rice. “It was just over 7,000 acres in 2022,” said Ponciano. He said that many families left to look for work elsewhere when work stopped.

He is realistic and hopes that the recent rains will provide some relief. It will take more than one season of rain to recover. He said that one season won’t get us out of this.

According to Richard’s son Nick, he had to find a job in another state last summer because of the lack of demand for agricultural aircraft in Colusa County.

As much as 95% of his customers farm rice. His planes are used during the April-May-June planting season to drop seeds in the rice fields. He said that that is the busiest time of the year.

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2023/02/16/business/california-rains-rice-farms/index.html

Sacramento Rains Rice Farms: An Example of an American Family Operation That Bought $10,000 a Year to Sell a Whole Lot of Rice

It cost us much more in lost revenue. We normally see an increase in revenue of $3 million a year. It was $600,000 last year. “It was just terrible.”

A man and his son fly planes. Four temporary pilots are utilized by the business. We had to let them go. He said that his son went to Indiana for five weeks to find work.

The operation, which mills, sorts and packages rice, is owned collectively by 17 farming families who’ve worked the land in the Sacramento Valley for generations.

We’re used to this time of year. In a normal year, we can deliver 80% of the product to our customers. In the past few weeks it has dropped to 10% to 20%.

“We have never done this before but we have to buy rice to serve our customers’ needs.” We were able to let 30 people go since last January. We had to work three shifts a week. That’s dropped to just one shift five days a week.”

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2023/02/16/business/california-rains-rice-farms/index.html

On the Reservoir Levels during the 2006-2007 Rains in the Rice Fields of the Napa-Tebu-Kua-Mahibe Delta

This year’s heavy storms have raised reservoir levels, he said. “They’re at close to historical averages, but not full yet. It’s still early in the farming season but we’re hopeful of getting close to 50% of water allocation.

“After harvest season, the sky over the rice fields would be filled with geese and ducks,” he said. “Instead, that time now has been quiet. We have not seen as many birds recently.