North Bay farmers still concerned about drought effects and heavy rains

The heavy rain pattern of early 2023 delayed the planting season in some areas and has contributed to rising food prices, while increasing costs for farmers still recovering from high feed prices incurred during the drought.

The National Weather Service reported that California received an estimated 78 trillion gallons of water during the winter and early spring 2022–2023 delivered by more than a dozen atmospheric rivers, narrow bands of intense moisture, that drenched the state. As a result, some 60% of the state’s farmland had surplus water.

California produces nearly 50% of U.S. fruits, nuts and salad ingredients such as lettuce, tomatoes, spinach, and kale, according to the California Department of Food and Agriculture. While greenhouses had tomato and leafy green vegetable seedlings, it was too wet to transplant them.

Brad Rubin, sector manager for specialty crops with Wells Fargo’s Agricultural Food Institute said, “Consumers may see smaller selections, lower supplies and higher prices due to rain and later plantings.”

The U.S. Department of Agriculture reported that egg prices, are 60% higher, butter is up 35%, and lettuce 25%.

Canned fruit and vegetable prices have risen 18%. Those increases are projected to go even higher during the year ahead. Canned tomatoes, for instance, could be scarcer because fields were soaked by all that heavy rainfall. As a result, farmers had to postpone the season's start by three weeks, according to the California Tomato Growers Association.

In other instances, excess rain led to unplanted or washed out fields along with unharvestable or rotting crops, and tractors were either getting stuck in the mud or carving ruts and compressing soils, according to Christopher Valdez, president of the Grower-Shipper Association of Central California.

Meanwhile, growers continued to find ways to cut spending while also creating alternative revenue streams to offset an overall 21% to 30% decline in farm revenue in the Golden State and elsewhere in an area of the U.S. known as the “Fruitful Crescent” — a farming region extending from Washington State through Oregon, California, Arizona, Texas and Florida.

Andrew Smith, Sonoma County Agriculture Commissioner, said while we have not received the benefit of such substantial rainfall in recent memory, heavy rain is a mixed blessing and can cause plants to mildew. The presence of fungus in soils requiring farmers to treat these conditions or risk crop losses.

“The three-year period between 2020 and 2022 was the driest on record for California,” Smith said. “Last year did not have a long cold period except for some frost. It was also a good year for growing field crops with hay, for example, that once sold for $5 now going for more than $20 a bale.”

With this year’s rain, crop yields should be much higher, especially for water intensive crops such as alfalfa, that requires five feet of water per acre, as well as for fruit and nut trees, rice and other water-intensive produce.

“The good news is that heavy rains filled our rivers, lakes and reservoirs helping to recharge Sonoma County’s three groundwater basins,” Smith added.

Need for capturing groundwater

According to Karissa Kruse, president of the Sonoma County Winegrowers, vineyards also play a critical role in capturing groundwater. She said many grape growers throughout the county have invested in storage facilities to contain rain.

“Heavy downpours quickly filled grower ponds, which should more than satisfy the irrigation needs for the harvest season,” said Kruse. “We have not heard of major weather-related issues among our members.”

She said winter rain, flooding and cold temperatures felt like a return to a more normal year for Sonoma County grape growers, and noted that the timing of these storms, while the grape vines were dormant, did not damage the vineyards or impact vine health.

Kruse said there were additional positive outcomes due to cold weather in terms of reducing disease and pest populations.

“Growers also believe the wet, cold soil provided a more effective winter chill for the vines which led to a better bud break this spring,” Kruse said.

“Our local grape growers are looking forward to a great harvest season. It is too early to predict the size of the crop, but they hope it will be an uneventful summer and are excited to see another harvest season upon them.”

Impact on North Bay agriculture

Dayna Girardelli, executive director of the Sonoma County Farm Bureau, summed up overall ag community conditions she is seeing across the county.

“All dairies have been hurting with organic hay prices high and hay shipments going out of state,” Girardelli said.

“For egg producers, it is a time of stress with more containment needed for hens, but egg prices are robust, in response to avian flu-related shortages and Prop. 2 helping to drive up prices.”

California’s Prop. 2, signed January 2015, prohibits the confinement of farm animals, including egg-laying hens, in a manner that does not allow them to turn around freely, lie down, stand up or fully extend their limbs.

Wise Acre Farm hens live outdoors, roam freely in open grassy fields with access to roosting shelters on wheels that can be relocated to follow hens as they move from one open field section to another. The "time of stress" reference was due to winter/spring weather conditions (since hens need sunlight to produce one egg per day) and skies were cloudy with little sun for almost two months.

She observed that for orchard farmers, fruit and nut trees benefited from rain and cold, but some faced frost issues that can harm bud breaks.

In addition, livestock ranchers have had to buy feed, rather than rely on pasture grazing with flooding and a lack of new grass making it difficult to sustain animals in the fields.

“Most of these conditions should improve with drier and warmer weather, additional daylight hours and an increase in natural grazing activity rather than seeing farmers depend on feed purchases,” Girardelli said.

Organic dairy losses

Organic feed and hay prices doubled during the recent drought. To address this concern, local organic dairy farms formed a coalition seeking USDA financial relief for the first time, since the prolonged drought is estimated to have cost dairy farmers from $300,000 to $500,000 in losses since 2021, according to Albert Straus, CEO of the Straus organic family creamery in Petaluma.

“More than a dozen dairy farms have been lost in California — including one of the 12 dairies on the Sonoma Coast that supply milk to us. Other dairies are also struggling. During the drought, having to buy feed for herds cost upward of 50% to 65% of revenues,” Straus said.

He said this situation may turn around this year with so much rain falling on pastures that also aids production of sileage and hay.

“We expect to see greener pastures and good grazing growth in 2023 that could cut feed costs in half,” Straus said.

Details of the proposed Federal Government financial disaster relief plan for organic dairies remain to be seen. More information is expected to be announced within a month, Straus added. He said this program will be administered by the Services Agency of the USDA and is expected to apply to organic dairy farms producing up to five million pounds of milk annually.

Straus said this program will help dairy farmers catch up on their bills, however, the pending federal program is only expected to cover about 10% of overall costs.

“Different farmers, especially the smaller ones, have varying economies of scale. Our farmers are hanging on and also anticipate getting additional relief from the state, but we need more income to be viable for the long term,” Straus said.

Effect on egg production

For Wise Acre Farm egg producer Tiffany Holbrook, and her pasture-raised poultry business on leased land in Windsor off Arata Lane, a long wet and cloudy winter can reduce egg production and escalate costs.

“Our feed costs have increased 37% over the last two years,” said Holbrook. “A very wet winter with short cloudy days creates problems for our flock, since fowl require 14 hours of daylight to produce one egg per bird. During winter months with less light, production goes down. We also spent $400 on pasture cover crop seed that was used up in a few weeks.”

Her farm has 1,100 laying hens (chickens, ducks and geese), plus 200 “teenage” birds and 250 baby chicks. Mature hens produced about 170,000 eggs in 2022 — 700-800 per day. Wise Acre’s eggs are sold direct to consumers via a vending machine on the property and are also delivered to seven local restaurants.

According to Holbrook, “Cooler days (above freezing) are not a problem for poultry, but wet fields with birds standing in water can make hens more susceptible to staph and bacterial infections such as Bumblefoot (a swollen foot condition that can be fatal) and Vent Gleep (a change in appetite producing a marked decline in egg laying). These maladies have not impacted Wise Acre’s flock. She said heat waves are more detrimental for poultry health.

Pasture-raised eggs have increased in price from $8 to $9 a dozen a year ago to between $9 and $11 a dozen today.

To supplement income, Holbrook branched out to sell chickens for meat and raises beef cattle for processing. With inflation, the price of young steers has gone from $1000 to $1,600 today. Costs associated with feeding them over 18 months has ramped up from $3,500 to $4,200.

“I care for our flocks and livestock. We frequently relocate our hens throughout a multi-acre pasture followed by egg-laying shelters trailers and feeders on wheels. Hens are guarded by dogs day and night. During fire season, we slept in a truck next to the flock so we can be out there if we must move them. A few years ago a wildfire came within 100 feet,” she added.

Falling apple prices

The Sebastopol area was once a thriving apple growing center in the region. Now only four or five apple growers remain, including Walker Apples in Graton, owned by Sue Walker’s family for over 100 years — with some trees of roughly the same century still producing.

“We are dry farmers growing 20 tons of apples, or more, each year including varietals such as Gravenstein, Golden, Jonathans, Winesap and others grown on 30 acres in the hill country. Ironically, unlike other consumer food price hikes, prices for apples have fallen to around $250 per ton, which only enables us to break even,” said Walker. “We definitely need a higher return.”

She said apple trees, like most fruit trees, love cool climates and lots of water. They send roots down deep to find it.

“For us, frost is a major issue, but we have not faced this problem in 2023. Last year frost killed blossoms reducing apple yield. We’re thankful for not having flooding or mudslides to worry about.”

However, she said an extremely wet year can lead to more worms and scabs requiring a lot of spraying.

“So far, we haven’t seen this. Weather is what it is, and we’ve seen cycles like this before.”

North Bay Business Journal Special Correspondent Gary Quackenbush (Gary.Quackenbush@gmail.com) was West Coast editor for Telecommunications Magazine, and later wrote for the Windsor Times and the Sonoma County Farm Bureau.