Drought can be a slow-motion crisis, and that's what it's looking like here in Ventura County, from an in-depth story from the Ventura County Star:
During this third year of drought, crops in Ventura County will go unplanted, farmworkers will lose jobs, plants and trees will see more salt-related stress and growers will begin following the available water out of the county and the state.
Those last-resort actions are the only options left for many growers in key agricultural areas who are facing irrigation wells being shut off and anticipated emergency mandates to cut water use as the industry struggles through another year with little rain.
“If there’s no water, there’s no water,” said Greg Lewis, production manager for the county’s largest celery grower, Florida-based Duda Farm Fresh Foods Inc. “We have to be cognizant that ranches with wells are the ranches where you want to be. Those with delivered water is not where you want to be.”
Pic from a strawberry farm in Oxnard, expect to go dry in June. Read more: http://www.vcstar.com/news/2014/apr/03/ventura-county-drought-means-fewer-acres-planted/?partner=RSS#ixzz2y2gjunpZ
– vcstar.com
Kit Stolz 