Extended severe drought , scorching temperatures , and supply chain setbacks are causing record amounts of farmland in California to be fallowed . Lee Allen investigates the impacts this could have on the rest of the country . | by Lee Allen
Climate change is serious business and getting more serious as temperatures rise and water wanes , bringing warnings of a global food crisis approaching while dire domestic signs appear in the form of fallowed fields and untended croplands . Famine — an extreme scarcity of food — is an entrenched part of life in some areas of the world , but not typically First World countries . Climate change is putting that to the test . Within the U . S .’ s borders , California Farm Bureau President Jamie Johansson became a prophet of despair when he addressed agricultural agencies in Washington recently on drought issues , zero water allocations , and supply chain setbacks , noting : “ There ’ s a perfect storm brewing that could pretty traumatically affect our food supply .” In a policy brief on how the state ’ s $ 50-billion agricultural industry annual revenue could be impacted , the report emphasised “ the megadrought and climate change are making California ’ s variable climate more volatile ” with those water shortages leading to idled land .
“ Farmers are fallowing farmlands and leaving them unplanted . Total land idled to date because of the drought represents 400,000 acres — over and above land already fallowed for other reasons .” For the crops that remain on the acreage still being tended , farmers are stretching supplies to reduce costs and instituting deficit irrigation , lowering watering below crop needs which , in turn , lowers crop yield and results in the ominous omen , as drought continues and water cutbacks increase , these impacts will likely intensify and spread . Existing reports now anticipate the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act ( SGMA ) of 2014 , implemented earlier this year to bring groundwater basins back into balance , means that more water can ’ t be pumped out of aquifers than goes back in . It ’ s anticipated that SGMA will force up to one million acres of farmland out of production . And its anticipation may have already caused that action to begin . “ There ’ s going to be hundreds of thousands of acres in the Sacramento Valley that have never been fallowed before that will be fallowed this year ,” says Ernest Conant , Bureau of Reclamation regional director for California-Great Basin .
NO FARMS ,
IDLING FARMLAND
52 Maximum Yield