Water, fuel, fertilizer issues impacting tomato farmers
Unlike most years, tomato farmers al- ready have a set price for their crop this year. TheCTGAandprocessorsagreed last month on $105 per ton, up from$84.50 in 2021. Montna said inflation and farmers’ increasing costs of growing factored into the price boost, noting growers and pro- cessorsweremotivated to reach an agree- ment early. “From a processor perspective, they canmake commitments to their growers,” Montna said. “Fromagrower perspective, youcanknowwhat you’regoing togetpaid before you commit andmake the best de-
cisionwithyourwater, because that’s your limitedresource.”Havingapricenowgives everyone “the best chance to make the right decisions,” he said. Even with the price increase, “we still have tohaveareallygoodcrop, it looks like, to make money,” Barcellos said. “We just have somuch risk on the producers’ side withthis tomatocrop, andwhat yieldshave beendoing over thepast 10 years, it’s hard to justify putting a lot of acres in tomatoes right now.”
ByKevinHecteman The supply chain’s weak links and California’s fickle winter weather are clouding the forecast for the state’s pro- cessing-tomato farmers. Aaron Barcellos, a diversified grower in Los Banos, already cut his tomato acreage by more than half last year—from 2,000 acres to 900—due to water supply short- ages. This year, he’s cuttingback further, to 530 acres, andwater’s not theonly reason. “We’ve seenour cost just skyrocket over the past six or seven years,” Barcellos said. “It used to cost us around $3,000 an acre to grow tomatoes. We’re projecting costs of over $4,000 this year coming up. We just haven’t had the revenues tomatch it.” Yieldshavebeenflator trendingdownover the past decade, he added, and “we hav- en’t been able to get those yield increases to offset the cost increases.” Bruce Rominger, who grows tomatoes in Winters and serves as board chair- man of the California Tomato Growers Association, namedfuel andfertilizercosts among his top concerns. “Primarily for us, the fuel cost hurts us inourproduction,”Rominger said. “All our tractors, all our pickups, everythingwe do outhereburns fuel.Weareveryconcerned about what that does to our cost structure when we see our prices do what they’ve done in the last sixmonths.” In January 2021, tomato processors intended to contract for 12.1 million tons, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture National Agricultural Statistical Service. That figurewas lowered twice as thedrought wore on—first to11.6 million tons in May, then to 11.1 million tons inAugust. The final harvest for 2021 was 10.8 million tons, well short of what growers Water deliveries get modest hike after Dec. storms California farmers and ranchers may see some modest relief in water alloca- tions this year. The California Department of Water Resources announced last week that it is increasing allocations for the State Water Project to 15% of requested water supplies for 2022. The limited promise represents an im- provement from last year. Last March, due to a lack of precipitation and snow- pack, DWR adjusted the SWP allocation for the 2021 water year to 5%, down from an initial allocation of 10%. Two consecutive years of drought led to the state’s adopting emergency water curtailments last year, which affected
wantedandprocessorsneeded, saidMike Montna, the president of CTGA . “It puts us in a pretty low inventory position where we’re going to have right around two months, maybe a little more than twomonths,worthof inventory start- ing June 1 based on projections,” Montna said. “That’s extremely tight.”
See TOMATOES, Page 46
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January 26, 2022 Ag Alert 3
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