DUST STORMS. Pest scourges. Diseased fungus.
As a historic drought drives water scarcity throughout the Western United States, these are some of the threats looming over hundreds of thousands of acres, experts say, if California farmland is left to dry up in coming years.
The drought has particularly dire implications for the San Joaquin Valley, the state’s agricultural heartland. The region is home to a $35-billion farming industry, which has had relatively unhindered access to water. But these days, with a relentless drought and a warming climate plaguing the West, the flow is looking less certain. Furthermore, decades of overdrawing groundwater to supplement surface supplies are finally catching up, leaving Central Valley aquifers depleted.
Enacted in 2014, California’s Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA) aims to reverse the trend by tightening restrictions on pumping, drilling, and deepening wells in order to restore underground basins. Yet those limits, coupled with deep slashes in surface water allocation, have already dried up some 752,000 acres of farmland statewide in the past year.Left fallow, dry fields can kick up a host of dusty consequences. … ”