Organic grower David Masumoto, who farms near Fresno, tells the Los Angeles Times, “We’ve been experimenting with this petite peach method this year, where we’re cutting back water use 30 percent, 40 percent, 50 percent on some select areas of the orchard to see how it responds.” The fruits are small but flavorful, says Masumoto. “It’s probably the most intense I’ve ever had.” Masumoto says the four-year California drought may lead to a re-consideration of where agriculture should be located and how it should operate. When water was plentiful, growers used it to produce ever-larger grapes or strawberries, he says. “I realized, I don’t think these peaches want to be big. What’s the matter with that? That’s my breakthrough: Oh, my god, I may have been over-watering all these years.”
“There’s a well-drilling boom in the Central Valley, and it’s a water grab as intense as any land grab before it,” says the New York Times, quoting an orchard owner in Tulare County as saying, “It’s all about survival” when irrigation water from rivers and water projects is rationed or unavailable. “Everybody is doing what they’ve got to do,” says the farmer. But the Times notes: “Rampant drilling causes underground water levels to fall. When shallow farm and domestic wells that serve residences dry up, the underground bounty goes to those who can afford to dig deeper …. Scarcity of water has always been an issue in the Central Valley.”
Growers discuss the potential of lawsuits to settle access to water and problems caused by subsidence, caused when water is drawn out of aquifers and the ground drops. One grower says comity among farmers is beginning to fray: “The infighting that’s going on is going to get real bad.”