Healthy soil and sustainable growing

["Tradingpost" <tradingpost@lobo.net>]

Produce Prices to Rise Due to Drought
Posted: June 5, 2008 11:38 PM
http://www.kmph.com/Global/story.asp?S=8440083

As if the hurting housing market and record-high gas prices weren't enough to 
break the bank, here's yet another reason to watch what you spend.

"The prices for produce, and fruits and vegetables, have dramatically 
increased," said Valley resident, Rick Ko.

This week, after two years of below average rainfall, low snowmelt runoff and 
a court-ordered restriction on water transfers, Governor Arnold 
Schwarzenegger declared a statewide drought in California. Now local farmers 
say they're bracing themselves for hard times ahead.

"The price of food is going to go up. There is no doubt about it," said 
Manuel Cunha, Jr., President of the Nisei Farmers League.

Cunha grows citrus in the Valley. He says growers are already facing higher 
costs for fertilizer and fuel, but without enough water for their crops he 
and other farmers may soon be forced to abandon their fields.

"Farmers have grown these crops, spent all this money, now they're just gonna 
let them dry up and the farmers aren't going to be able to recover any costs; 
so the farmers and farmland are going to go into bankruptcy. They're going to 
go broke because of this," said Cunha.

But experts say the farmers and consumers won't be the only ones affected by 
the drought.

"Also the people that work for the farmers and work for the retailers moving 
the food around and if we don't have enough water to plant the crops then 
they don't get employed. So it affects the whole economy," said Mechel Paggi, 
of Fresno State's Center for Agricultural Business.

The Governor's drought declaration is part of an effort push a $12 billion 
bond that would fund groundwater improvements and conservation efforts.

But until the governor and legislators can come to terms on a plan, the price 
of produce may start to rival the price at the pump.