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warmer temperatures and snowmelt last week, he said most of his cattle were back on the home range, and the calves “look pretty good,” though he had not yet done a full headcount. “I don’t know that anybody fell onto any catastrophic losses, but I’m sure there’s going to be losses reported,” Fulton said. Some operations won’t be able to fully as- sess their numbers until later in the year when the snow thaws, he added. In Plumas and Sierra counties, ranch- er Dave Roberti said cold temperatures and lack of sunshine have not produced enough grasses for his grazing cattle, which means he’s been “feeding expensive hay all year long.” He said ranchers in the region typically don’t store or buy any hay because they ship cattle from pasture to pasture. When their pastures are short of feed, “going out finding hay is tough to do, this year especially.” His cattle have lost weight, as “there’s just not enough feed to sustain them.” Roberti said he’s also worried about the impact of flooding on alfalfa fields, which can be lost if left in standing water. Jimmy Hook, president of the California Agricultural Commissioners and Sealers Association, said agricultural commission- ers are collecting damage information but he expects delays due to the wet conditions. “This would be a good scenario for a state (disaster) declaration and it sounds like in- formation collection has started to assess that avenue,” said Hook, who is the agricul- tural commissioner in Kings County. At the governor’s request, President Joe Biden issued a presidential emergency declaration last week, authorizing federal assistance to support state and local storm response efforts. With storms forecast to continue this week, the state of emergency was declared in 43 counties. (Christine Souza and Ching Lee are assistant editors of Ag Alert. They may be contacted at csouza@cfbf.com and clee@cfbf.com.)
Tulare County dairy and citrus farmer Tom Barcellos of Tipton, who runs an ex- cavation business, said he had three exca- vators and a backhoe operating nonstop. The flooding “is in excess of what all of these rivers can handle,” he said. “The challenge is on the creeks that have no control structure. They’re going to run until they slow down and that means that they’re going to run for a while, and wherever they’re broke out, good luck, because there’s no stopping it,” Barcellos said. “It’s not just here, it’s Fresno County, Madera County, Kern County—there’s just water everywhere.” For at-capacity reservoirs, facility man- agers announced plans to release water through dam spillways to make room for water from the next storm. Cows were evacuated from several dairies impacted by floodwater from the Tule River and were moved to another dairy facility. Moving the dairy cows, farmers said, brings its own set of challenges, such as having to break cows into a new environment and finding feed to replace what was damaged. Meanwhile, citrus groves have an “ex- tensive amount of debris,” Stuller said. “At one ranch there was seven propane tanks—I don’t know where they came from—and porta-potties, logs and mud,” he said. “We have a lot of local flooding, just massive damage to orange groves with 2 feet to 5 feet of silt.” Barcellos said, “I saw drip lines strung out across the road because of the force of the water flowing through the orchard. It’s going to be wet, muddy and full of silt for a long time.” Floodwaters are filled with “massive trees,” Barcellos said. Water managers at Lake Success were trying to keep debris from hitting the spillway and “building its own beaver dam that just floods everything even that much worse.” Tulare County Farm Bureau organized a list of volunteers and services to help in the
Severe storms brought floodwater to Monterey County, displacing residents and damaging crops, such as berries in hoop houses above, west of Salinas near the Salinas River. Monterey County Farm Bureau estimates crop damage from the storms to exceed $336 million.
effort. Tulare County asks that dairies and farms report evaculations to the county’s flood hotline at 559-802-9791. In Monterey County, there was significant flooding along the Salinas River and two le- vee breaks along the Pajaro River. Residents of Pajaro, including farmworkers, were evac- uated. Gov. Gavin Newsom visited Pajaro last week to view the damage and meet with government leaders and first responders. Monterey County Farm Bureau Executive Director Norm Groot said he expects agri- cultural damage to exceed the $336 mil- lion caused by storms that hit the region in January, affecting 15,705 acres. “There will be more crop losses as areas that have not experienced flooding now are experiencing it for the first time,” Groot said. With food safety the highest priori- ty, Groot said storm-flooded fields must undergo a testing protocol to return to production. The protocol, established by the California Leafy Greens Marketing Agreement, is needed to determine wheth- er pathogens are in the fields. The process may take 60 days after waters recede. “With fields being so saturated and inac- cessible,” Groot said, “planting schedules set for March will probably be delayed.” The California Strawberry Commission
said, “Our farming communities will face a massive cleanup before they can even begin the process of preparing the fields again and starting over.” Despite the challenges, the commission said there will be increased shipments of strawberries from Oxnard and Santa Maria to keep up with demand. The deluge of storms that dumped several feet of snow in mountain ranges left grazing cattle stranded and ranchers unable to access their animals due to im- passable roads, downed trees and harsh conditions. Humboldt County officials said they had received multiple reports of cattle starving and dying, with some 30 ranchers in the region reaching out for help. Agencies, including the Sheriff’s Office of Emergency Services, the state Governor’s Office of Emergency Services, CalFire and the U.S. Coast Guard, worked to deliver rancher-provided bales of hay via helicop- ter to the hungry cattle. Dubbed “Operation Hay Drop,” the effort started March 5 and assisted more than 2,000 cattle in Humboldt, Mendocino and Trinity counties. Todd Fulton, who runs a cow-calf opera- tion in Humboldt County, said he received three air drops for his cattle in Kneeland. While the hay didn’t help his cattle gain weight, he said, it kept them alive. With the
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the end of March. As of Monday, Lake Oroville, the project’s largest reservoir, reached 82% of capacity. That was 122% of its historic average. With much of California under a state of emergency due to severe winter storms, it remains under a drought emergency issued by the governor in October 2021. The emergency triggered water curtail- ment orders by the California State Water Resources Control Board for affected wa- tersheds. Although the orders are suspend- ed, the board continued the curtailments in 2022. The orders expire in August. Amid the drought and water cutbacks in 2021 and 2022, California agriculture fallowed 1.2 million acres of irrigated farmland, according to research by the University of California, Merced. (Christine Souza is an assistant editor of Ag Alert. She may be contacted at csouza@cfbf.com.)
14 Ag Alert March 22, 2023
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