‘It’s a disaster.’ Drought dramatically shrinking California farmland, costing $1.7 billion: Reuters.
‘It’s a disaster.’ Drought dramatically shrinking California farmland, costing $1.7 billion: Reuters.
California farmers could lose as much as $2.5 billion in market value, according to a top food analyst, as a lack of precipitation threatens to decimate their fields.
A group called the Central Valley Farmers Association estimates that California will lose as much as $1.7 billion in farm revenue from June 2017 to June 2018, which is worse than the state’s recent drought.
The loss of revenue, according to the group, could result in increased income taxes for those agriculture-dependent businesses.
Drought-stricken farmers in California have been warning for years that the lack of rain has been costing their business. And now, the loss in revenue in a period with a large agricultural season as well as a large tourist season could mean that they will have to raise their prices on their crops, making them more expensive for consumers.
The situation is far from normal for California farmers. The state was hit with five years of drought under Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger in the late 1990s. But the state is no longer experiencing the same level of drought it faced just 30 years before. Droughts were more severe and widespread during the mid-1990s, and many of the areas where crops were most likely to be burned to keep the ground from washing away were no longer found after all of the smoke and dirt settled on the soil.
“It’s very sad,” said Eric Brown, an irrigation industry analyst. “It’s a disaster, and I’m not talking about the crop losses.”
California farms were hit hard from the drought in 2010. In 2012, the state had a disastrous year with just one-sixth of its normal rainfall.
Since then, the state has been able to get most of