Tomatoes Continued from Page 3
prove the situation. Normalmight sustain the situation, but youcan’t improve itwith normal rainfall. We’ll just have to see how that plays out.” Rominger said the allocation is helpful, to a point. “That 15% certainly helps quite a few growers, but a lot of us, including myself, don’t get any state or federal water,” Rominger said. “We’re relying locally, here in Yolo County, on the wa- ter coming out of Clear Lake and Indian
Valley, and there’s still no allocation going to come out of there at the levels they have right now. We’re still looking for a lot more rain and keeping our fin- gers crossed.” Farmers also cited the rising cost of la- bor as a factor, especially the lower over- time threshold. As of Jan. 1, overtime for employers of 26 ormore people kicks inat eight hours in a day or 40 in aweek. “Theovertimeconstrictionsaregoing to really hamper a lot of growers,” Barcellos
said. “It’s reallyhardtoget everythingdone that youneed todo ina40-hourworkweek or eight hours a day. The labor pool is not what it was in the past, so it’s not like we can runmultiple shifts.” Rominger saidhe runsdrip irrigation24 hours a day at times. “We can’t find enough people to run three shifts,” Rominger said. “We end up running several employees on a second shift that’s more like a swing shift.” These folks can change drip-irrigation valves at 10 or 11 p.m., he noted; valves should be good till 6 a.m. “That’s going to be more expensive because of overtime issues this next season.” That assumes he was able to install the irrigation system in the first place. “It’s been really hard to getmaterials for putting innewdrip-tape fields fordrip irri- gation, because the supply chain can’t get it to us,” Rominger said. Barcellos isworriedabout fertilizer, not- ing that some products have doubled or tripled in price—if it’s even available. “There’s concerns about availability this summer when we need a lot of these products,” Barcellos said. “There’s more unknowns than normal this year.” Some of themain ingredients come fromChina, he added. “A lot of that stuff just isn’t getting over here, and China’s got their own demands and needs for it as well,” he said. All of this couldonceagainhamper out- put, Barcellos said. “There’s probably plenty of demand for a12million-plus-toncrop,but Idon’t think the industry’s going to be able to source the acres or the water to produce that size of a crop,” Barcellos said. “Until we have a decent water supply again in California, andhave anicewet year, I just don’t seeus having theacres toproduce thecropfor the demand that we’ll have.” (Kevin Hecteman i s an ass i stant editor of Ag Alert. He may be contacted at khecteman@cfbf.com.)
Chief among the risks is water. Late last week, the state announced a 15% alloca- tion for water contractors, up from zero at the outset of winter. Montna noted that the rest of winter will tell the tale, as a dry January followed awet December. “We’re going to need a good February and a goodMarch to figure out what wa- ter position we’re going to be in,”Montna said. “We need better than normal to im-
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46 Ag Alert January 26, 2022
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