Posted on 06/01/2021 8:30:34 PM PDT by blam
We’ve documented (read here & here) this spring of a “megadrought” sweeping through the western half of the country and could be one of the worst in decades. This is troubling news because major water reservoirs have already dropped to dangerously low levels, cutting off access to farmers.
The latest US Drought Monitor map shows nearly the entire western half of the nation is experiencing some level of drought at this moment. Parts of the Southwest could be undergoing their second Dust Bowl as conditions continue to deteriorate.
According to Reuters, for farmers like Joe Del Bosque, located in Firebaugh, California, a third of his 2,000-acre farm is unseeded this spring due to extreme drought and the inability to source water.
About 40% of California’s 24.6 million acres of farmland is irrigated. State and federal agencies that regulate reservoirs and canals across the state do not have enough water to allocate to farmers. Many of them are leaving their fields unplanted as a result of the water shortage.
We’ve explained before, La Nina conditions are turbocharging droughts in North and South America.
Agriculture in the state counts for 2% of its GDP and employs hundreds of thousands of workers. The state is a top producer of berries, dairy products, nuts and vegetables.
Del Bosque told Reuters he’s “taking a big risk in planting crops and hoping the water gets here in time.”
Others are reducing crop acreage as there is simply no water to go around:
“I’m going to be reducing some of our almond acreages. I may be increasing some of our row crops, like tomatoes,” said Stuart Woolf, who operates 30,000 acres in Western Fresno County.
Woolf said about 30% or 9,000 acres would be fallow this growing season because of water shortages.
Del Bosque said he’s estimated to lose half a million dollars in income this year and lay off many of his 700 workers.
Ernest Conant, regional director of the Bureau of Reclamation, California-Great Basin region, the federal agency that manages dams, canals, and water allocations in the Western US, said, “we simply don’t have enough water to supply our agricultural users. We’re hopeful some water can be moved sooner than October, but there are no guarantees.”
Water shortages across Southwest are increasing as average crop development growth in these areas will likely be impacted this growing season. Hot air, gusty winds, and low humidity will accelerate drying conditions.
To call this a “plague” would be a significant understatement.
If arid conditions continue in the Southwest, there will be epic crop failures by the end of this year’s growing season. This suggests US food production could be impacted, fueling inflation at supermarkets.
(snip)
This won't help prices either:
JBS Shutters All US Meat Plants As Cyber Attack Jeopardizes Food Supply
BS alert. There are no “la nina conditions” present today. The ENSO meter is at exact neutral. There is drought because the west is mostly semiarid to arid land and various degrees of drought conditions are normal.
“shortages” are ALWAYS, and I do mean ALWAYS, a hallmark of socialist/communist/fascist economic regimes ... just as we were tested with creeping autocratic control of our daily lives during the covid “pandemic”, we’ve being gradually acclimated to “shortages”, starting with shortages of paper towels and toilet paper during the early days of the “pandemic”,with more and more “shortages” accumulating every since then ... we now have major shortages of building materials and appliances, initially intermittent shortages of energy supplies, and of course, now the ultimate shortage: food supplies ...
twenty years ago, how many here really believed that what we’re seeing today would be really happen?
Well at least that endangered smelt is safe. /s
“But the snail darters will be just fine.” - some f***ing federal judge
Well it's written it would come but I never expected the speed in which it's come about nor the comfort of which people appear perfectly acceptable it is so.....
Yes true that....but media and internet folks like the country in panic mode.
Just as long as I have my almond milk.
At least some Californians will be able to drive to the grocery store on $6/gallon gas to find the produce aisles ‘closed for the season’
No. They'll find that they can't go because their electric vehicle battery is dead and they're in a black out condition and cannot charge it.
bookmark
Ha!.....For me it’s real butter...have to have it!
All us preppers. I started prepping about that long ago. Ten years ago we moved away from the East coast and I bought a rural junk of woods in rural MO Ozarks. USDA coil survey says this land is prime farmland soil, clayey loam. Not enough big flat lands or a long season for commercial AG but anything except for tropical fruits will grow here. We're surrounded by thousands of springs, most of the putting out potable water, the all supply the Meramec River which eventually feeds into the Mississippi River. Took me two years to find this place after we moved out here. Lived off grid for those two tears plus another three years here.
We're near the Southern tip of that, aka the beginning or head waters.
Were you struggling to find TP last Spring? I saw empty shelves in Italy weeks before we had shortages here and I stocked up. I'm no tree hugger but if you look into it, Big AG, Big Gov and Big Biz or Big anything don't care about the results of anything they do, so long as they get rich from it. You can add Big Med/Pharma in there too. If they keep getting rich while the rest of us live in dirt villages and walk or ride a bike everywhere and struggle just to subsist, that's fine with them. The roads, airways and places they live and visit will be less crowded with us heathens.
Standing on Fallowed Ground
Texas was in a drought 10 yrs ago, but plenty of rain lately. A little too wet, actually.
That may be the case, but Lake Oroville, which is a stone’s throw from where I sit is about 50% of normal capacity at this time of year. We ship water to SoCal so they can water their lawns or whatever....anyway...looks like very little water for the southland.
Ping
Preach it, brother.
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