Ag’s major needs are water and workers

The major concerns for California agriculture as an industry are water and workers. Most everybody seems to understand that.  Phil Martin in the department of Agriculture and Natural Resources at Davis has clarified the issues and written a report that appears in the current issue of Update, his department’s bi-monthly newsletter. He forecasts warmer winters ahead as an important issue in the supply of water to irrigate crops. With added tree crops expected to be part of the California landscape he sees what he calls a hardening of demand for available water It is defined by the need to irrigate trees for 20 or 30 years, while land where forage and field crops are grown might be fallowed when water supplies are tight. The third major influence he sees is intensified water marketing, movement of irrigation water around the state.   Professor Martin’s report includes an assessment of farm worker availability and the forces that influence it. He notes that the number of hired agricultural workers rose 12 percent over the last decade to reach 415,000 in 2014. But it took 829,000 “unique” workers to fill those jobs because of seasonality and turnover.