California’s tomato farmers are getting squeezed by water crisis as growing costs continues to rise
squeezed farmers who saw their margins sliced and diced. While the cost of growing tomatoes continues to rise, it’s ultimately hitting consumers in the wallet as well.
Mike Montna, president and CEO of the California Tomato Growers Association, stands on a farm nearing the end of its harvest for the season. “It’s just like owning a second home and trying to rent it out,” Barcellos said of his fallowed land. “If you don’t have a tenant in there, you still have all your fixed costs … but you have no income coming from it.”“We started off with lower acres because of our water supply with the drought,” explained Barcellos, who is a partner inwith his brother, son and nephew. “During the drought, our water triples and quadruples in price.
“We are seeing … hotter streaks during the summer, more extremes between cool and warm and I don’t know what an average year is anymore,” he said, adding that the decline in yield is attributable to tomato plants getting disrupted by these temperature swings. “A lot of that is due to the climate change.”But it’s not just water, which Barcellos called their “number one limiting resource.
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