Feds To Turn Off Tap To California Farms

by Natasha Chart · 2009-02-21 11:47:00 UTC
Topics:

Drought; from the collection of the International Rice Research InstituteCalifornia's estimates put last year's drought losses (pdf) at $308.9 million. It was so bad that 80,000 acres went fallow and farmers turned to hiring dowsers. This year is likely to be worse.

Federal water managers are planning to stop water delivery to California's farms for two weeks in March because of severe drought conditions sweeping the region. (via)

They're hoping for more rain, but the cutoffs could be even more drastic, costing the state's farms as much as a billion dollars and 40,000 jobs.

But considering the likelihood that California will permanently lose its agricultural base this coming century as drought conditions become normal due to climate change, we should be asking Tom Engelhardt's question more often. Is Economic Recovery Even Possible on a Planet Headed for Environmental Collapse?:

... If the kinds of hits regional agriculture is now taking from record-setting drought became the future norm, wouldn't we then be bereft of our most reassuring formulations in bad times? For example, the president spoke at that press conference of our present moment as "the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression." On an extreme planet, no such comforting "since the..." would be available, nor would there be any historical road map for what was coming at us, not if we had already run out of history. ...

Good times, as they say.

(Photo credit: the International Rice Research Alliance on Flickr.)

Natasha Chart
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