As I drive across my family’s farm in the San Joaquin Valley, it feels as if I’m traveling on a chessboard. I cross one square with crops and then another without crops — our fields that must lay fallow. Our farm’s crops have been decimated by the drought.
Last year, reduced water deliveries in the state led to 395,000 acres of cropland being idled, according to University of California, Merced researchers, and about 8,750 agricultural workers lost their jobs.
On my 2,000-acre farm, we used to produce organic fruit and vegetables — melons, asparagus and sweet corn — in addition to cherries and almonds. Three years of unprecedented drought have altered our landscape. Last year we said goodbye to the asparagus and sweet corn. This year, we cut back on cherries. Next, we’ll reduce our almond acreage.
