April 8, 2006
-
Posted on Sat, Apr. 08, 2006
Rain ruins farm yields
PROFITS DOWN, PRICES TO RISE
Mercury News
Seventeen million of Frank Muller’s tomato plants wait in greenhouses in Oxnard. Millions, perhaps billions more are jammed into other nurseries around the state.
With each rainy day, profits fall. Fields are too wet for planting. Plants aren’t bearing fruit. Canneries want tomatoes, field hands want work and nurseries want the plants gone.
But there’s not much Muller can do except wait, worry — and watch for sun.
“There hasn’t been a single sustained break in the weather,” said Muller, a tomato grower from Woodland. “I can pretty much count on one hand the number of hours of sunshine we’ve had.”
It’s the same throughout the state, according to the California Farm Bureau: Soggy strawberries. Moldy lettuce. Tractors mired in mud.
Rain delayed planting of Central Valley’s rice and cotton. It has slowed the development of grapes and stone fruit in the Napa and Sonoma valleys. In the Sierra foothills, cattle ranchers worry about hoof rot.
This spring’s unusually cool and wet weather is lowering yields and income, even as farmers’ expenses climb. That could translate directly into shortages and higher prices for consumers into midsummer.
“Every week that goes by, the growing season gets shortened exponentially,” said Jack Olsen, executive administrator with the San Mateo Farm Bureau. At this rate, California-grown tomatoes won’t be on grocery shelves until after July 4.
Monday, Olsen and local farmers will meet with federal officials and California Secretary of Agriculture A.G. Kawamura to learn what aid might be available to the region’s farmers.
The problem is not so much the total rainfall this season, although it’s well above average. In just the first week of April, for instance, Watsonville got more than double its expected average for the entire month.
Rather, it’s the combination of rain, low temperatures and overcast skies that is wreaking havoc with the growing season. And farmers are afraid the problem will continue after the rainy season ends, as melting snow fills rivers and canals and floods low-lying areas of the Central Valley.
In Gilroy, Kip Brundage’s hay fields are lush and green, rich with the promise of young grass standing like strands of jade.
But he’s already missed the first cutting of alfalfa hay, worth about $200,000. The oat grass is beginning to collapse under the weight of its grain. “They’re drowning,” he said.
His equipment — some weighing as much as 25 tons — can’t work in the mud. And once the hay is cut, it needs to dry in a week of sunshine before baling.
The ripple effects can be felt in other segments of the agricultural economy, as farm laborers sit idle and crop-dusting planes stay grounded.
“My 60-plus employees aren’t working right now,” said Muller. “They understand. But they want to work.”
Early varieties of tree fruit such as apricots, peaches, plums and nectarines will probably produce a light crop this year.
In the Pajaro Valley, hail damaged the strawberry flowers, resulting in deformed fruit. The fruit that survived is being discarded in the fields. It is too waterlogged to survive shipping.
“The strawberries that are ripe now — we’re just throwing them away,” said grower Ed Ortega of Watsonville.
In Pescadero, which has received 40 inches of rain this season — almost double the average — Bianchi Flowers grower B.J. Burns can’t get his equipment into the fields to cut the white, feathery foliage of fresh yarrow. He fears many plants will rot.
Crops that are yet to be planted, such as pumpkins, will be significantly delayed, he said.
“The ground is so muddy you can’t turn it over,” said Burns. “You can’t chop the weeds and turn them under. You can’t do anything; you’re just wasting your time. It gets you down.”
In the Livermore hills, “calves aren’t as big as in years past,” said Darrel Sweet, who raises 120 beef cattle. “It’s been a long, long time since it’s been this wet and cool in April.”
Friday, ranchers along the San Joaquin River sought higher ground to move livestock away from rising waters.
In the Fresno area, raisin and wine grapes are all vulnerable, according to the California Farm Bureau. Grapes are at a critical stage in April — and if they become heavily diseased with fungus, they can lose their bloom and the future crop.
Asparagus is plentiful in the Stockton area, but harvesting has slowed. Tractors pulling sleds with asparagus spears are getting stuck in the mud and have to be pulled out, said Bill Salmon of King’s Crown Packing Co. Workers in mud-caked boots move more slowly through fields, limiting the amounts they can pick.
But spring is the season of hope. Farmers say that if they can endure this year, maybe next year will be better.
“It’s Mother Nature,” said tomato grower Dean Janssen of Ace Tomato Growers and Packers in Manteca.
“You can’t change her. She just does what she wants to do.”
———————————————————–
———————————————————–
