I won't be Chicken Little and shout, "the sky is falling!" but California's agricultural horizon is definitely a long way from being filled with sunshine and butterflies.
The list of things that make it tough to be a farmer in the nation's number one ag state has been long for a long time, but current weather, politics and economic conditions are making it worse.
Start with drought, which is forcing some farmers to pick between keeping trees and vines alive or planting field crops. Want to guess what is winning? Predictions are that up to 800,000 acres of farmland statewide will go unplanted this year. Less locally-grown feed, of course, will mean higher prices as dairies are forced to buy it from farther away.
Meanwhile, milk producers have also seen rapidly rising farmland values sneak up behind them… just not theirs. Once upon a time, dairies bought cheaper orchard and vineyard ground and turned it into corrals. Now, though, dairies have become the prey.
And then there are politicians. Despite being the number one U.S. agricultural and dairy state, California lawmakers with zero farm experience – which is nearly all of them – seem both clueless to those facts and determined to tell farmers how they can and can't operate.
The latest example is a newly proposed bill to ban the use of antibiotics in animals for any reason except diagnosed conditions. It isn't expected to pass this time, but it shows what California food producers are up against.
