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Sure, but nothing will fully replace the productivity of the California central valley, which has some of the most fertile soil in the world. The Willamette val

Sure, but nothing will fully replace the productivity of the California central valley, which has some of the most fertile soil in the world. The Willamette valley up in Oregon is incredibly fertile as well, though it is currently too cold to grow lettuce and strawberries year round. That will change in the coming years but the Willamette valley is about the third the size. Additionally, the Pacific northwest is drought prone just like California, it's just not quite as bad yet. When I was there earlier this summer the reservoirs we're quite low

cronix 5y ago
They're even lower now. A few months ago, the federal gov't cut off a lot of farmers in S. Oregon from water that they use for crops. To save fish. > Amid historic, climate change-driven drought, the federal government in May shut down the water supply from the Upper Klamath Basin on the California-Oregon border to protect native fish species on the verge of extinction. As a result, Hill and other farmers like her in the region have been cut off from water they have used for decades. https://www.cnn.com/2021/06/10/us/klamath-oregon-drought-water-war/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2021/06/10/us/klamath-oregon-drought-wat... People go to bed with water and wake up to dry wells. Since the farmers can't use the traditional water source in the area, they are digging their wells deeper and deeper in order to water their crops. Something a lot of regular people can't afford to do, so as the farmers drop the water table searching and searching for that continually drying up water, others are going without. https://www.opb.org/article/2021/07/29/southern-oregon-wells-dry-up-drought/ https://www.opb.org/article/2021/07/29/southern-oregon-wells... Bad things seem to be coming.
dv_dt 5y ago
I wonder if there are any water loss effiencies that can be applied to crops. Farmers of certain crops in California basically erect and take down temporary structures of all sorts either for pest or temperature controls to optimize yields already.
riversflow 5y ago
>currently too cold to grow lettuce and strawberries year round. I don't have links, as I found out about by asking what happened in the San Yanez and Santa Maria valleys to someone who works in Ag finance (they are starkly barren compared to what they were just a few years ago and I was very curious), but California berry production has been almost completely off-shored to Argentina. As they explained, berries are a low margin crop to begin with that absolutely requires hand picking, and California's minimum wage laws along with cheaper refrigerate freight have driven the local farmers out of business. He seemed to think that California Ag was completely on its way out, and that we can expect to be importing almost all of our fresh vegetables and fruits from South America.
scrumbledober 5y ago
the largest contiguous section of class A farmland in the world

cronix 5y ago

They're even lower now. A few months ago, the federal gov't cut off a lot of farmers in S. Oregon from water that they use for crops. To save fish. > Amid historic, climate change-driven drought, the federal government in May shut down the water supply from the Upper Klamath Basin on the California-Oregon border to protect native fish species on the verge of extinction. As a result, Hill and other farmers like her in the region have been cut off from water they have used for decades. https://www.cnn.com/2021/06/10/us/klamath-oregon-drought-water-war/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2021/06/10/us/klamath-oregon-drought-wat... People go to bed with water and wake up to dry wells. Since the farmers can't use the traditional water source in the area, they are digging their wells deeper and deeper in order to water their crops. Something a lot of regular people can't afford to do, so as the farmers drop the water table searching and searching for that continually drying up water, others are going without. https://www.opb.org/article/2021/07/29/southern-oregon-wells-dry-up-drought/ https://www.opb.org/article/2021/07/29/southern-oregon-wells... Bad things seem to be coming.

dv_dt 5y ago

I wonder if there are any water loss effiencies that can be applied to crops. Farmers of certain crops in California basically erect and take down temporary structures of all sorts either for pest or temperature controls to optimize yields already.

riversflow 5y ago

>currently too cold to grow lettuce and strawberries year round. I don't have links, as I found out about by asking what happened in the San Yanez and Santa Maria valleys to someone who works in Ag finance (they are starkly barren compared to what they were just a few years ago and I was very curious), but California berry production has been almost completely off-shored to Argentina. As they explained, berries are a low margin crop to begin with that absolutely requires hand picking, and California's minimum wage laws along with cheaper refrigerate freight have driven the local farmers out of business. He seemed to think that California Ag was completely on its way out, and that we can expect to be importing almost all of our fresh vegetables and fruits from South America.

scrumbledober 5y ago

the largest contiguous section of class A farmland in the world