California has been experiencing a drought that will not only impact farm workers, but everyone else, as well.
Prices will go up on fruits and vegetables, not only here in California, but in the rest of the nation as well. California is the main source in which fruits and vegetables come from.
There has been a big difference between this year’s weather pattern and last year’s weather pattern, according to KGET weather forecaster Kevin Charette.
“This will probably be the driest year since we’ve seen right around 1976,” he said. “Our average rainfall for 2014 in the state is little over four inches.”
According to Charette, there has been a strong ridge of high pressure that has been positioned right over California, which dries our jet stream. The jet stream is the steering force of all our storms that we do see, which has steered the storms to the north to Washington and Oregon and into parts of Canada and Alaska.
Charette did mention that Kern County might pick up some of the rainfall it so desperately needs in March and April.
Bakersfield College agriculture professor Gregory Cluff explained some consequences that will affect everyone.
“Over the last five years, we’ve been relying more and more on pumped water, which means we’re not replenishing the water table,” Cluff said. “We have to pump up the water from a deeper depth. That takes energy, the more energy we use for water, the higher the price for pumping water will be.
“Every person is going to be affected by this drought, if the drought persists long enough our productivity will go down, since we’re not farming enough acres, which will start impacting jobs.”
Randal Beeman, BC social science professor said, “The people who are severely going to be impacted are the farm workers who are making minimum wage, and often, because of immigration statuses, [they] don’t have as much access to social service as other people might have.”
Beeman explained that the drought would have an effect on the average consumers as well.
“What consumers are going to see is less produce, higher prices, and low quality.”
Beeman explained that the drought has forced farmers to participate in fowling, which means that they are not planting crops and are letting others die.
Cluff also mentioned fowling, explaining that it has already gotten to the point in the west side of the valley that farmers are not putting in replacement orchards.
According to Cluff, farmers might sacrifice planting grains like wheat and forages, in order to opt for higher value crops such as almond, orange, and pistachio trees.
“Forages might take the biggest impact, since it is food for the dairy. Farmers will have to import forages from other states such as Nevada, Idaho, Utah, and Arizona,” he said.
As for water conservation during the drought, Beeman recommends Bakersfield residents to switch their lawns over time to a desert landscape, which is called zero-scaping.
California is the capital leader in per capita water use, as far as using water per person than other states, due to the low-flow toilet and low-flow showers. Also, it is recommended to replace toilets in older homes, which use five to six gallons more than the low-flow alternatives.