San Joaquin Valley growers Bill and Carol Chandler on their Fresno County farm. (photo: John Stumbos / UC Davis)
San Joaquin Valley growers Bill and Carol Chandler on their Fresno County farm. (photo: John Stumbos / UC Davis)

Drought’s gloomy outlook in California

Prof. Dan Sumner and alumnus Bill Chandler discuss impact in San Joaquin Valley

San Joaquin Valley growers Bill and Carol Chandler on their Fresno County farm. (photo: John Stumbos / UC Davis)

February 28, 2014
(from the New York Times)

An article in the New York Times prior to President Obama’s recent visit to the drought-stricken San Joaquin Valley included input from two prominent UC Davis figures.

UC Davis alumnus Bill Chandler, who farms raisin grapes, peaches, and almonds near Fresno, Calif., talks about how dry the region is and how little water he and his fellow growers expect.

“People would like to think a few storms will solve our problems, but that’s not even going to get us close,” he said.

 

Dan Sumner
UC Davis professor and Agricultural Issues Center director Dan Sumner. (photo: John Stumbos / UC Davis)

 

Dan Sumner, professor of agricultural and resource economics at UC Davis, and director of the UC Agricultural Issues Center, predicts hundreds of thousands of acres of productive farmland won’t be planted this year. “This is a real idling of land, and there is nothing positive about it,” Sumner said.

(Read the full New York Times article, by Jennifer Medina, published February 13, 2014.)

Media contact:

  • Daniel Sumner, Dept. of Agricultural and Resource Economics, UC Davis, 530-752-1668, dasumner@ucdavis.edu