LOMPOC, CALIFORNIA– Fertile farmland in California is withering on its way to becoming a world of desert due to global warming.
Climate change makes it more important for people to source their food locally and organically, environmentalists say, as local farms are suffering due to the globe’s rising temperatures.
“We operate under the assumption that it will rain,” said Orin Cadwell, as he sold tomatoes, lettuce, and peaches at the farmers’ market.
California suffered from its longest exceptional drought between 2014 and 2017, studies show, and the state could be at the beginning of a similar water crisis. The state entered the exceptional drought again at the start of 2021.
With California being in a constant state of extreme drought, farmland has started to desiccate. “Soils are likely to be drier and periods without rain are likely to become longer,” the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said in a study.
This global climate crisis not only has destroyed farmers’ ability to grow fruits and vegetables, but it also is putting a salmon species in Sacramento at great risk of extinction. The river is rising in temperature and is forbidding the young fish to live past the egg stage.
Droughts also are upending American farm sales. Farmers are now struggling to keep up with foreign producers, especially those in Mexico.
“We used to have a window when Mexico did not yet have the conditions to grow specific fruits and vegetables,” Cadwell says. “Global warming has made that windowless and less and it is nearly impossible to compete.”
Extreme heat has exhausted farmers, and many now suffer from mental breakdowns due to the combination of high temperatures and strenuous work.
Still, Cadwell thinks that farmers can be saved. “Buy organic and buy local,” he says. “Support your local farmers, because we are running out of steam.”
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