A near-record dry winter has put California in the grip of its worst drought in decades. While many parts of the state have yet to feel any real impact – no cutbacks, no stiff rationing – that’s not the case in the farm towns of the San Joaquin Valley where water is the touchstone of the economy and underpins the region’s standing as the most agriculturally productive in the nation.
About 20,000 farm jobs statewide stand to be lost this year out of 400,000, the bulk of them in the valley, said Jeffrey Michael, director of the Business Forecasting Center at the University of the Pacific in Stockton.
The estimate does not include thousands of additional jobs supporting agriculture: the truck drivers, packers and processors, as well as the merchants, real estate agents and teachers serving these farm communities.
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