Rice Continued from Page 1
JimVanDyke, owner of VanDyke’s Rice Dryer inPleasantGrove, said the shortwa- ter year affects not only farmers but busi- nesses such as his that dry and store rice. Van Dyke serves as a boardmember of the South SutterWater District, which de- livers 70% to 80%of its water to rice grow- ers.He said thedistrict normallydelivers 2 acre-feet of water per acre to growers, but it will deliver just seven-tenths of an acre- foot this year. Some farmerswill be able to supplementwithgroundwater, but he said he thinks others in the district will proba- blynot plant half ofwhat theynormallydo. “It’s a big cut and it’s going to affect ev- erybody,” he said. Sutter County farmer Mike Daddow said he’s had “a lot more time” this spring to work on deferred maintenance on the farm, because water cutbacks forced him to plant only half his acreage. “There’s some prevented-planting in- surance I can collect, but it’s going to be a tough year,” he said. (ChingLeeisanassistanteditorofAgAlert. Shemaybe contactedat clee@cfbf.com.)
average 500,000 acres grown annually in the state, he added. The U.S. Department of Agriculture estimated California 2021 rice acreage at 471,000, a decline of 9% from last year. “These cuts will not only have an im- pact on farmers but also the small towns in the Sacramento Valley that are depen- dent on rice farming, ricemilling, trucking and all the services that go into bringing rice toour customers in the state, U.S. and around the world,” Johnson said during a mediabriefing lastweekat FarmAirFlying Service in Sacramento. McKenzie,who leasesa lot of hisground and custom farms for other growers, said he doesn’t “have the opportunity to fal- lowacres,” adding that he relies onsurface water and groundwater to growhis crops, depending on the ranch. “If it haswater,which it does, or ifwecan get water to it, we’re going to plant it,” he said. “We’re rice farmers; we’re going to grow rice.” Other farmers also are planting full acreage, rice commission spokesman Jim Morris said. Even thoughacreagewill like- ly be lower this year, he said weather has been favorable to finish planting on time, whichhelps, and that farmers areplanting their best-performing fields, which could boost per-acre yields. Except for a few days of gusty winds that reached 30 to 40mph, which created “havoc in the field” by potentially bunch- ing seeds that had been sowed, Colusa County rice farmer DonBransford agreed that temperatures have been “wonderful” for planting, and said impacts from the wind “may beminimal.” Larger water districts in the region, including the Glenn-Colusa Irrigation District, of which Bransford serves as boardpresident, are participating inwater transfer programs to help address water shortages.Bransfordsaidhisdistrict,which irrigates about 90,000 acres, is looking to idle about 15,000 acres, withmost of that water going to San JoaquinValley farms. Irrigationdistricts that divert water from the Sacramento River—Sacramento River Settlement Contractors—have already vol- untarily reduced diversions to conserve coldwater in Shasta Lake and protect fish,
Farmer Brian McKenzie stands by a rice field in Sutter County that’s ready for seeding. McKenzie says he plans to plant all his rice acreage, though statewide acreage will decrease.
the canteen full of water and everybody else’s canteen is empty,”he said. “Weneed toshare, even though it hurtsmeand it has an impact onmy community.” With already lower inventories and re- ducedacreage, thepriceofricewillprobably continue to climb, Durst said—and that’s a concern, because “you can actually price yourself out of themarket”and losebuyers.
Bransfordsaid,notingthatGCIDisdiverting aboutathirdlesswaterthanit typicallydoes. With the price of rice trending higher in anticipation of lower California acreage, Bransford said he thinks fewer farmers may be willing to idle ground and partic- ipate inwater transfer programs this year, compared to the 2014-15 drought year. “I think there’soptimismfromagrower’s perspective that the price is up,” he said. “As thepricegoesup, that interest decreas- es, because farmers want to grow food.” Of the more than 100,000 acres of rice ground expected to be idled this year due to water shortages, Lewis Bair, general manager of ReclamationDistrict 108, said 30,000 to 40,000 of those relate to water transfers; themajority isdue to reductions in surfacewater supplies. Thoughmarkets represent aprimedriv- er for farmer participation in water trans- fers,Bair saidthere’smorewillingness from Sacramento River Settlement Contractors to“spreadthepain”bysellingwater if italso helps salmon and farmers elsewhere who are strugglingwithwater shortages. Fritz Durst, who farms rice in Yolo and Colusa counties, said he “felt obligated” to engageintransfers, thoughhe“wouldreally rather growrice.”He saidhe sees the trans- fers as part of the solution to some of the environmental andurbanneeds forwater. “It’s tough in a year when we have the right to the water and we’re the ones with
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