What Recent Rains Mean for California Farmers

Summary

Recent heavy rain­fall in California is seen as a pos­i­tive end to the drought, but not all farm­ers will ben­e­fit as flood­ing and water dam­age neg­a­tively impact har­vest­ing for cer­tain crops. The rain may help olive farm­ers, who are less affected by drought, as they require less water to pro­duce a favor­able yield and may see increased oil vol­umes later in the year.

As cli­mate change con­tin­ues to wreak havoc on weather pat­terns around the world, California has wel­comed the recent heavy rain­fall as an end to the drought that has plagued region for the past few years.

Most of the recent rain­fall will be col­lected in reser­voirs and aquifers for use in future months, but not all farm­ers will ben­e­fit from the heavy pre­cip­i­ta­tion and reports show that many grow­ers are expe­ri­enc­ing flood­ing and water dam­age that could neg­a­tively impact and delay har­vest­ing for cer­tain exported food crops.

Recent esti­mates from the Center for Investigative Reporting reveal that a third of all rev­enue gen­er­ated by California’s food indus­try comes from exports, which have tripled in value over the past decade. Exporting farm­ers grow­ing spinach, let­tuce and oranges (California’s sig­na­ture win­ter crop) are among the worst affected by the rain.

Muddy con­di­tions, mildew and stand­ing water are pre­vent­ing farm­ers from prun­ing sea­sonal tree crops as well as har­vest­ing and plant­ing pro­duce. An esti­mated two mil­lion acres of irri­gated farm­land in California could be aban­doned due to the recent flood­ing, and with thou­sands of locals depend­ing on these farms for employ­ment, local com­mu­ni­ties could also suf­fer.

California has long been a water-scarce state, with farm­ers reg­u­larly depend­ing on ground­wa­ter and stored rain­wa­ter as a means to irri­gate crops dur­ing the dry peri­ods. The recent rain­fall has not been even across the region but will be able to alle­vi­ate dry con­di­tions in both Northern and Southern California.

As Agricultural Expert and UCCE Farm Advisor Emeritus Paul Vossen explained, ​“two of the largest reser­voirs in north­ern California also feed into the water dis­tri­b­u­tion sys­tem that sends water to Southern California. So, while Southern California has not received enough rain­fall to com­pletely fill their reser­voirs from rain­fall runoff, their drought sta­tus has been reduced due to the greater avail­abil­ity of water from the north.”

The rain is likely to be wel­comed by olive farm­ers in the area, although they are less affected by the drought due to olives being a hardier crop. According to Vossen, part of California’s suc­cess with grow­ing olives can be attrib­uted to the fact that as an agri­cul­tural crop, olives grown for oil only require about half of the water that other crops need to pro­duce a favor­able yield.

UC Davis Olive Center exec­u­tive direc­tor Dan Flynn told Olive Oil Times that the rein­vig­o­rated water sup­ply may encour­age grow­ers to irri­gate more, which would help increase oil vol­umes later in the year. According to the Agricultural Market Research Center, sup­ple­men­tal irri­ga­tion is encour­aged despite the drought tol­er­ance of the olive tree, as it allows for max­i­mized shoot growth and fruit size, which leads to a bet­ter yield of fruit (and there­fore oil) per acre.

Currently, California is respon­si­ble for pro­duc­ing the vast major­ity of olives in the United States, and has been com­mer­cially pro­duc­ing olives since the 1800s. The area is home to over 400 olive oil pro­duc­ers.

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