Friday, Jun. 20, 2008
Rationing forces growers to abandon crops
Farmers in federal districts hard hit by mid-summer shortages.
By Dennis Pollock / The Fresno Bee
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ReprintIn 47 years of farming, 65-year-old Jim Diedrich has battled it all - hail that savaged his tomatoes, insects that ate his cotton, sagging prices and searing heat.
But now he faces something new.
He and his son, Todd, must abandon more than a full square mile of tomatoes in the Firebaugh area - their blooms yellow, leaves still green, drooping a little from the lack of water but otherwise standing firm and stretching in endless rows.
"Being a farmer, it's tough to let this go," Todd Diedrich says.
The Diedrichs are letting 725 acres of tomatoes die so they can keep 550 acres of almond trees alive. "If we lose the trees, a 35-year investment is gone," Diedrich says.
Unprecedented water rationing, resulting from a drought and court-ordered environmental restrictions on pumping, have forced the move, which will mean millions of dollars in lost revenue this year. Last week's emergency declaration by the governor won't help, Diedrich says.
Many growers in the massive Westlands Water District face the same Sophie's choice - which crops to save and which to abandon.
A court ruling to protect threatened fish and a dry spring prompted the district's ration plan, which delivers less than 6 inches of water per acre during the three hottest months of the year - less than a fourth of what some crops need.
Westlands, which covers 600,000 acres, accounts for $1 billion in farm production, 20% of the total for the No. 1 farm county in the nation, Fresno County.
The district will receive just 40% of its federally contracted allotment. In addition, the district must restrict use of water from the San Luis Reservoir, which did not receive 700,000 acre-feet of state and federal water because of restrictions on pumping out of the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta.
At least 100 farmworker jobs already have been lost in the Westlands district.
The Diedrichs alone have laid off 25 workers.
"We kept the guys with families and home payments," Todd Diedrich says. "Some of the ones we had to let go have been with us for 20, 25 years."
Particularly frustrating to the Diedrichs is that they thought they had prepared for drought conditions. In recent years, they spent more than $1 million to put in underground drip irrigation to save water. They added solar sensing equipment to detect moisture levels.
And they purchased water outside the district, water they won't be able to obtain in the three-month period because of the restricted pumping and the rationing program aimed at making sure the San Luis Reservoir is not drawn so low that deliveries will come to a halt.
The Diedrichs say they don't expect to be able to collect on crop insurance, though they're seeking to do so.
"Crop insurance is for a crop failure," Jim Diedrich says. "No insurance man is going to pay you because you didn't water your tomatoes."
Avtar Gill, a partner in Gill Insurance Agency in Caruthers, says Diedrich is right. "It's not a covered loss," he says.
Some farmers hold out hope that a disaster declaration could bring direct payments or low-interest loans.
Other farmers also are making tough choices.
Not far from the Diedrichs' tomatoes, Larry Enos has abandoned 1,600 acres of cotton so he can keep his own tomatoes alive. He says he made the choice in part because he is a partner in a tomato processing plant, Ingomar Packing in Los Baños.
As you pass by the cotton, you can see - by the varying shades of green - just where in the field the irrigation stopped on the day the word went out on May 28 that rationing was to begin.
"There's nowhere near enough water to keep it alive," Enos says. "We're still short on water for the tomatoes. We're giving them water less frequently."
Enos has laid off 16 workers.
"Across the Valley, a lot of workers will be laid off," he says. "Trucking companies won't have stuff to haul. Commodity brokers won't have things to sell. There's a cotton broker in Fresno who gets paid by the bale. He'll lose that pay."
Permanent crops - which have taken an increasing share of acreage in Westlands in recent years - could suffer an especially high toll. If they die, farmers lose far more than one season's investment.
Shawn Coburn, another Westlands grower, worries his almond trees may become firewood.
Brothers Mike and Doug Wood, who farm in the Mendota area, are concerned about effects of salty well water they may have to use on their trees to replace what they'd otherwise get by canal from Westlands.
Damage from insufficient watering could hurt next year's almond crop, Mike Wood says.
The Wood brothers, who farm in the Westlands, Panoche and San Luis water districts, have idled 150 acres of cotton to keep their almonds and other permanent crops alive.
"It used to be that there was water there if you were willing to write the check," Mike Wood says. "Now, you could be Howard Hughes and you couldn't buy water."
Juan Calderon, office manager for Baker Farming southwest of Mendota, says he hopes to save the operation's almonds, pomegranates, wine grapes and pistachios - all permanent crops.
"Within the next couple days, we will probably sit down and see what crops we may decide to abandon or cut back to the point of just keeping them alive," he says.
Tom Ramirez, who grows cantaloupes and honeydew melons south of Mendota, will not plant 300 acres of the melons as planned. He says he'll probably have to lay off five or six people.
"This thing is going to trickle out to the parts dealers, to chemical dealers," he says. "They may have to downsize their employees, too."
Back at the Diedrichs', Coburn shares a joke: "You know the difference between a puppy and a farmer, right?"
Jim Diedrich shakes his head.
"A puppy quits whining when it grows up," Coburn says.
The growers chuckle. There's always something a farmer can complain about.
But Coburn says this crisis is different. While growers in west side water districts have often faced low allocations of federal water, they've not had to walk away from crops after investing millions of dollars to grow them.
"It's as if somebody did this beautiful Etch-A-Sketch of all this crop land, picked it up, shook it and said, 'Back at you,'" Coburn says.
Todd Diedrich tallies potential losses: Just more than $1 million was put into tomatoes that won't be harvested, and the Diedrichs expect to lose about $2.75 million in gross sales for fruit that can't be sold.
If there had been enough water, he says, "it would have been a profitable year." But it's too early to know what the bottom line will be this year, he says.
"If we can't get any money from the insurance," he says, "we'll be in the red."
Jim Diedrich leans on a hoe that has become as much his cane as a tool for chopping weeds from his crops.
He says he's had two hip replacements, has "arthritis real bad" and is "just wore out."
As to how things will fare for the family's farming enterprise, he says, "We'll squeeze by. We'll survive. But what's going to happen next year?"