Vegetable and fruit growers in the Salinas Valley on California’s Central Coast “are actually thriving despite historically dry conditions – at least for now,” says the Santa Cruz Sentinel. “In Monterey County, whose fertile soil produces more strawberries and lettuce than any other county in California, the $4 billion agriculture industry is humming along rather nicely,” yet 70 miles away in the Central Valley, fields lay fallow and laborers can’t find work. “The tale of two farming regions illustrates how the effects of the drought are highly local, with dramatic variation from one place to another based on climate, weather, crops and, most importantly, access to water.”
In the Central Valley, irrigation water from state and federal projects is scarce. The Salinas Valley draws irrigation water from a groundwater basin. The aquifer has shielded the valley from the effects of the four-year drought but is being drained at unsustainable rates. For the moment, farmers plant nearly every field and yields remain high. Farm employment is up.
California’s peach crop is forecast for 566,000 tons this year, down 8 percent from last year and the fifth year in a row of falling production, says the USDA. The decline will be offset by larger harvests in South Carolina and Georgia. California grows 70 percent of U.S. peaches.