California Farmer Reveals Once-Great Agricultural Powerhouse ‘Now Just a Wasteland’

September 12, 2022 Mark Wolf US 0

Democrat-run California, once an agrarian juggernaut, has deteriorated into a parched “wasteland” amid crippling droughts and gross government mismanagement, according to farmers there.

Kurt Richter, a third-generation rice farmer in Colusa — the Golden State’s rice capital — said he and many other farmers have been forced to abandon their fields for the year because they’re unable to water them.

“It is now just a wasteland,” Richter told the San Francisco Chronicle on Saturday.

“There’s a dark, metaphorical cloud hanging over our heads that we’re going to have another short or non-winter,” he said. “It’s weighing heavily on everyone’s minds.”

Richter said his farms won’t be able to hire any seasonal workers or subcontractors because “we just don’t have anything for them to do.”

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The latest drought and California’s inability to navigate a recurring problem are mind-boggling.

You’d think state officials would have figured out some way to manage California’s frequent water shortages since this has been happening for decades.

Farmers leaving hundreds of thousands of fields fallow because they’re unable to get water is bad news not only for them but for their workers, California residents and the state as a whole.

Will California’s drought get worse?

“As drought endures for a third year with record-breaking temperatures and diminishing water supplies, more than half of California’s rice fields are estimated to be left barren without harvest — about 300,000 out of the 550,000 or so in reported acres, provisional data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture shows,” the Chronicle reported.

Aaron Smith, an agricultural economist at the University of California, Davis, estimated that the drastic reduction in rice acreage alone will result in $500 million in lost revenue.

California is the largest producer of food in the United States, so any disruption in its food supply has a trickle-down effect on all Americans.

Why are the Biden administration and the state’s Democratic leadership not doing more to address an immediate problem affecting California and the nation?

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House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, a California Republican, told Fox News last month that Gov. Gavin Newsom “has failed when it comes to water.”

“You should store it in the abundant years to have it for the years coming forward when it comes to drought,” McCarthy said. “That would show you good management.”

Many distraught farmers feel they have little recourse for the agricultural implosion unfolding before their eyes.

“Nobody really knows what’s going to happen,” Luis Espino, a farm adviser at the University of California’s Agriculture and Natural Resources extension, told the Chronicle.

“The only thing we can do is keep positive and hope for rain,” he said.

Did you get that? Wishful thinking is the last resort for many disheartened farmers in the most powerful nation in the world.

As a reminder, in addition to its agricultural devolution, California is also being decimated by rampant homelessness and horrifying crime waves, thanks to Democrats’ toxic policies.

As bad as things are now, they can get much worse very quickly. It is well past time for Americans to open their eyes and right this sinking ship.

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