Farmers shift to permanent crops, despite water uncertainty

By Alex Breitler
Record Staff Writer
Posted Nov. 15, 2014 @ 8:00 pm
Updated Nov 15, 2014 at 10:45 PM

LINDEN — In the very place where the verdant Valley meets the dry, rolling foothills, longtime farmer Kenny Watkins climbed out of his truck one morning last week to examine an orchard of peach trees planted just last February.

The trees are already taller than the farmer.

“It’s virgin ground,” Watkins said. “Just unbelievable.”

During this drought, much has been written about the rapid conversion of vegetable row crops to more profitable fruit and nut orchards, given California’s tenuous water supply.

Unlike row crops, orchards cannot be fallowed during times of shortage.

But in some areas, including the eastern fringes of San Joaquin County, orchards are being planted in areas that have never been irrigated before, or at least, only sporadically over the past 150 years. Primarily, these were rolling grasslands for dry-land wheat farming and cow-grazing.

Today, almonds, grapes, walnuts and yes, even peaches have taken root, forming a mosaic of irrigated orchards and open dry land.

It is a mixed blessing, arguably. These crops yield greater profits for San Joaquin County’s $2.9 billion farm industry, which is threatened by urban sprawl closer to Stockton. These orchards on the edge of the county are, Watkins says, a normal evolution of the landscape driven by simple supply and demand.

“It’s all economics,” he said. “Walnut prices are the highest in history. That’ll keep driving not just farmers into it, but we’ve also got outside pressure from investors coming and wanting to plant them because of the market conditions the way they are now.”

The downside: The water for these orchards has to come from someplace, and it has to be available for the long term. Watkins relies on groundwater and surface water diversions from the Stanislaus River, diversions which could be hindered in the future by climate change and rules to protect fish.

Overall, the county has estimated that a total of 70,000 acres of land that has not been farmed in the past may be converted to crops in coming decades. This could, in part, offset gains made in local urban and agricultural water efficiency.

In the bigger picture, experts worry that the state’s over-reliance on groundwater will threaten farmers’ investments. Groundwater is supposed to be a kind of savings account for drought years, but until recently California was the only western state not to regulate its use.

“We’re acting like the super rich who have so much money they don’t need to balance their checkbook,” Richard Howitt, a University of California, Davis economist, said earlier this year.

Changing times

The transition to permanent crops has been underway for many years, both here in San Joaquin County and across the Valley.

In 1936, the oldest year for which county crop reports are available, row crops like alfalfa and beans dominated the San Joaquin County landscape, along with grains including barley and wheat. Overall, less land was in agriculture in the 1930s than today, despite the urban development that has occurred since then.

Now consider the popular crops of the 21st century: Almonds accounted for a mere 4,661 acres countywide in 1936; today they have exploded to more than 56,000 acres. Walnuts weighed in at just under 10,000 acres in the old days; today you’ll find more than 60,000 acres, an area larger than the city of Stockton.

A record-setting walnut crop is expected this year, and almonds topped the county’s 2013 crop report with a value of $468 million.

Those concerned about the sustainability of these crops tend to be less critical of operations in San Joaquin County than they are of the south Valley, where large farm districts are heavily reliant on intermittent water deliveries from the overstressed Delta.

Converting to permanent crops in these areas is illogical, contend environmentalists like Stockton’s Bill Jennings. “They’re going away from growing food for people and going toward growing food for cocktail bars,” he said. “They’re stretching resources, depriving other farmers in the Delta and our rivers and streams.”

And despite the pain suffered by Valley farmers who tore out orchards during the previous drought, those farmers turned around and planted even more orchards in the following years. An analysis earlier this year by Jeff Michael, an economist with the University of the Pacific, showed that fruit and nut crop acreage increased by more than 386,000 acres Valley-wide, a 7 percent bump, between 2007 and 2012.

With those new crops came additional water demands in an area already leaning heavily on groundwater.

To be sure, there are many reasons farmers would want to plant permanent crops, starting with profit. Crops like wine grapes can yield more than $20,000 per acre in value, more than four times that of wheat, for example.

And consumer tastes are trending toward healthy, nutritious snacks like nuts. Such tastes have expanded with global population growth and the rise of Asian economies.

Jay Lund, director of the Center for Watershed Sciences at UC Davis, learned this first-hand on a domestic flight in China last summer. “They were handing out California almonds on the plane,” Lund said. “Everything was in Chinese except, ‘These almonds came from California.’ ”

Lund and others argue that the profitability of these crops is precisely why farmers should embrace newly passed legislation giving the state some authority over groundwater management for the first time.

“A free tap on the oasis — that’s not sustainable, I think, in some portions of the state,” Lund said.

Family history

Kenny Watkins drove back from the peach orchard to his house two miles east of Peters, a town so small that there is no sign.

The farmer had piled historic books and photos on his dining room table, to prove two things: That his family has been here for an awfully long time, caring for the land; and that it’s not such a radical idea to grow fruits and nuts here, anyhow.

There was a photo of Watkins’ grandfather, standing with the first tractor he purchased for $970.93 in 1919. Watkins still has the receipt.

The books talk about how wheat from this portion of the county was once sent by railroad to the Port of Stockton, and shipped all over the world. In 1880, San Joaquin County raised the largest wheat crop in the world.

But times changed. One 1879 history book spread open on Watkins’ table talks about how the east county was “good average wheat land, but when properly worked is very profitable in fruits.”

Today, that vision is being realized, Watkins says. Failure to adapt means a failing farm.

While many worry about water “sustainability,” the 51-year-old Watkins — who is vice president of the California Farm Bureau Federation — defines the word differently:

“The true sustainability is the family, the landowner,” Watkins said. “If you’re going to pass it on to the next generation it has to be productive, it has to be profitable. It has to be something that’s going to generate income for your family and the next family.

“You have to be able to pay taxes, you have to be able to take your kids to school, and you have to be able to build a new house every so many generations. Otherwise, you go to town and get a paycheck once a week.”

Contact reporter Alex Breitler at (209) 546-8295 or abreitler@recordnet.com. Follow him at recordnet.com/breitlerblog and on Twitter @alexbreitler.