How the Drought Is Affecting California’s Crops

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People cooled off in the Whitewater River on Saturday as excessive heat warnings were issued for much of California. Credit... Mario Tama/Getty Images

Good morning.

In recent weeks, dangerous heat has killed hundreds of people in Oregon and Washington, endangered workers across the region and strained California’s power grid .

It has also exacerbated the slow-moving natural disaster already punishing the West: the drought.

Late last week, Gov. Gavin Newson formally urged all Californians to reduce their water use by 15 percent . It’s not a mandate, but it underscores the harsh new reality we’re facing.

Even though residents and big urban water agencies got much better at cutting water use during the last major drought, from 2012 to 2016, the situation now is dire enough to warrant such a broad plea.

Newsom also expanded the state’s drought emergency so that it encompasses 50 of the state’s 58 counties, including Santa Clara, which is the most populous county in the Bay Area.

The drought is pummeling many of California’s varied agricultural industries particularly hard , as farmers and ranchers contemplate a future without — or with much less — water.

And it’s forcing difficult choices about the most efficient uses of a precious resource.

Like all the rest of California’s thorny problems, which crops to grow and how much of them should be planted is a shifting puzzle unfurled across millions of acres.

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A single sunflower overlooking fallowed fields at Del Bosque Farms in Firebaugh. Credit... Mike Kai Chen for The New York Times

Consider the almond.

In the midst of the last drought, the tree nut was much maligned for being, well, thirsty. In 2015, story after story trumpeted that each almond takes a gallon of water to produce — while Angelenos and other city dwellers were being forced to rip out their lawns and go to other lengths to conserve.

But Ellen Hanak, director of the Public Policy Institute of California’s Water Policy Center , told me that the reputation wasn’t totally fair.

While almonds do use a large amount of water per acre of crop, she said, it’s similar to other tree crops and less than rice, irrigated pasture or alfalfa, which is essentially cow food.

Furthermore, how much water it takes to grow various crops is hardly set in stone. It depends on how hot the place is where the crops are growing, for instance. Irrigation methods can also make a difference.

“What matters for agriculture is: How much money do you make with the water?” she said. “One of the reasons people single out almonds is because they’re widespread on the landscape.”

It is true that the demand for almonds exploded just as the last drought was gripping California, Hanak said. However, the rise of the almond as a signature California crop hints at bigger trends.

Tree crops — including almonds, but also peaches, citrus, avocados and other fruits and nuts — turn every drop of water into a lot of money compared with other crops.

A 2018 analysis by the institute found that “orchards and vines” accounted for 45 percent of California’s crop revenues and 34 percent of the water used for crops. Alfalfa, by contrast, accounted for 4 percent of the revenues and used 18 percent of the water.

So farmers have increasingly turned to those higher-value tree crops.

At the same time, Hanak said, growers, water agencies and regulators are trying to rebalance the state’s depleted groundwater supply — an effort that would have taken years, even under wetter circumstances.

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A dry canal running adjacent to a field of corn in Sacramento Valley. Credit... Mike Kai Chen for The New York Times

“Folks have just developed these plans and they’re just launching them and then we get hit with another severe drought,” she said. “It’s really tough.”

Heat Wave Hits North America

As suffocating heat hits much of Western North America, experts are concerned about human safety and power failures.

• • Western Canada: Canada broke a national heat record on June 27, when the temperature in a small town in British Columbia reached almost 116 degrees Fahrenheit, breaking an 84-year-old record by nearly 3 degrees, with dangerously hot weather expected to continue for several more days.
  • Pacific Northwest U.S.: A heat dome has enveloped the region driving temperatures to extreme levels — with temperatures well above 100 degrees — and creating dangerous conditions in a part of the country unaccustomed to oppressive summer weather or air-conditioning .
  • Severe Drought: Much of the Western half of the United States is in the grip of a severe drought of historic proportions. Conditions are especially bad in California and the Southwest, but the drought extends into the Pacific Northwest, much of the Intermountain West, and even the Northern Plains. The extreme heat is exacerbating the dry condition s.
  • Growing Energy Shortages: Power failures have increased by more than 60 percent since 2015, even as climate change has made heat waves worse, according to new research published in the journal Environmental Science & Technology .
  • Baseline Temperatures Are Rising: New baseline data for temperature, rain, snow and other weather events reveal how the climate has changed in the United States. One key takeaway, the country is getting hotter.

Some farmers are deciding to take parts of their land out of production while they must. Some are grappling with whether they should keep farming at all.

This dilemma is part of why, as my colleague Somini Sengupta recently reported , the San Joaquin Valley — California’s agricultural heartland — is projected to lose more than a 10th of its acreage of agricultural production by 2040.

Hanak said that changes could perhaps take place without a major hit to the region’s economy. But it would most likely mean continuing to use water on the most lucrative crops, which also tend to bring more employment.

Whatever happens, the consequences will be felt not just in California’s $50 billion agricultural sector, but also in the nation’s food supply.

California, as Somini noted, supplies two-thirds of the country’s fruits and nuts and more than a third of America’s vegetables .

For more:

• If you missed it, read about the trade-offs California farmers are making amid a transformative, extreme drought.

• That includes the Central Valley’s Punjabi Sikh farmers , who have built on 900 years of agricultural roots, but are now confronting an uncertain future.

• Death Valley hit 130 degrees over the weekend, and more than 31 million people were in areas under excessive heat warnings. It’s climate change.

• Catch up on the basics of California’s drought .

• Climate change is also adding urgency to a once-in-a-generation fight over energy’s future: More power lines or rooftop solar panels?

• Read more about why California has flex alerts .

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Here’s what else to know today

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Eric Garcetti, 50, has served in city government for two decades in Los Angeles. Credit... Stefani Reynolds for The New York Times

Compiled by Jaevon Williams

• After weeks of speculation, President Biden officially named Mayor Eric Garcetti of Los Angeles as U.S. ambassador to India , unleashing a scramble to replace him as leader of one of the world’s most diverse cities.

• The Los Angeles Times lays out how the city will pick its next mayor .

• In the wake of the Florida condo collapse, there’s been an increase in homeowner association boards inquiring about the condition of their own complexes in Southern California to ensure older buildings are sound, The Orange County Register reports.

• More than 20,000 people were forced to undergo sterilization under California’s decades-long eugenics program . Now, the state is prepared to spend $7.5 million to find and pay surviving victims an estimated $25,000 each.

• According to NBC Los Angeles, Sunday was the third straight day of more than 1,000 new reported cases of Covid-19 in Los Angeles County . The county public health director, Barbara Ferrier, said that “nearly 100 percent of new cases are occurring among those not fully vaccinated.”

• Britney Spears’s desire to end her conservatorship has drawn new attention to legal oversight arrangements , which some advocates for people with disabilities believe may not be necessary in many cases.

• In 2001, the movie “Legally Blonde” cemented Reese Witherspoon’s status as a Hollywood star for her portrayal of Elle Woods. Today, Elle remains an emblem for challenging stereotypes and embracing female empowerment in the face of misogyny.

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California Today goes live at 6:30 a.m. Pacific time weekdays. Tell us what you want to see: CAtoday@nytimes.com . Were you forwarded this email? Sign up for California Today here and read every edition online here .

Jill Cowan grew up in Orange County, graduated from U.C. Berkeley and has reported all over the state, including the Bay Area, Bakersfield and Los Angeles — but she always wants to see more. Follow along here or on Twitter .

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