The department of agriculture predicted Monday that there would be a 5% to 6% increase in the price of fruits and vegetables due to lower production in California's Central Valley.
California produces more than 50% of the country's fruits and vegetables.
Federal water regulators slashed water allocations to zero and as a result farmers had to triage their crops and pump groundwater.
All in all California farmers fallowed 500,000 of land this year. The state flushed 800,000 acre feet of water into the San Francisco Bay last winter and 445,000 acre feet into the bay this spring,
That is enough water to service 3 million households to live on and irrigate 600,000 acres of farm land.
Federal regulators ruled that pumping at the Sacramento- San-Joaquin river delta threatened the smelt. so the waters were dumped into the ocean rather than exported to the farmers in the valley where it was so desperately needed.
It really shouldn't surprise us, after all, the California Legislature is still going forward with the Bullet Train to San Francisco.
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