On Hansen Ranch in the Central Valley, fifth-generation farmer Erik Hansen grows a little bit of everything — pistachios, almonds, pomegranates, alfalfa, corn for silage and cotton.
“We farm 15, 16 different crops,” Hansen says. “Cotton is our biggest acreage crop, and that’s in the form of Pima cotton.”
That diversification has long been the Hansen family’s survival strategy. But in spring 2023, no amount of crop rotation could shield them from disaster.
“Where we’re standing right now was underwater,” Hansen recalls. “A mile from here, over by that PG&E substation, was the edge of the lake.”
The flood wiped out 600 acres of pomegranates and 400 acres of pistachios. One thousand acres of permanent crops gone in one season.
“It was a massive hit,” Hansen says. “We had about 5,000 to 6,000 acres under water. Some of that water lasted for over a year.”
From Too Much Water to Not Enough
The irony is hard to ignore: In 2023, floodwaters destroyed thousands of acres. Now, Hansen says it’s the lack of access to water that could cripple farms across the Central Valley.
“The last projections I heard were anywhere from 1 million to 1.2 million acres totaled in the valley,” he says, referring to farmland that could be idled by the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA).
Passed in 2014, SGMA requires local agencies to reduce groundwater overdraft and achieve sustainable use by 2040. On paper, Hansen says, that makes sense.
“To some extent it is good because you have to have a way to manage the overdraft,” he explains. “The problem is there are surface water facilities we developed back in the 50s and 60s that we’re just not using. A lot of that water is going out to the Pacific Ocean.”
For Hansen, the politics sting. He believes decades of state decisions — prioritizing fish and wildlife, reallocating water, and neglecting infrastructure — set up today’s crisis.
“I’m frustrated because the families that have been farming here for years, some decades, sometimes even more, are being footed with a bill for problems that somebody else created,” Hansen says. “If the state doesn’t look in the mirror, I think we’re going to find ourselves in the same position again.”
Young Farmers Face the Same Struggles
Forty miles south, 30-year-old Elizabeth Keenan is navigating the same regulatory headwinds. Her grandfather Charlie started Keenan Farms in 1972, acquiring one of California’s first pistachio orchards. Today, Elizabeth farms alongside her parents and brother.
“Rolling with the regulatory punches can be complicated,” she admits. “Despite pistachios being such a high-value product, despite having optimal land and weather conditions, we really have everything set up beautifully — except for legislation.”
Water, she says, is the most difficult hurdle.
“We’re up to a 50% allocation,” Keenan explains. “The base allocation is 2.2 acre-feet, so we get 1.1 acre-feet to use. Otherwise, we have to have open fallow fields. To pump more water, we have to buy it on the open market, and that’s expensive too.”
A Political Battle Over Flows
Signs line highways across the Central Valley warning that 80% of California’s river water flows out to the Pacific instead of farms. Assemblyman David Tangipa, a freshman lawmaker representing the 8th District, says those numbers are real.
“It’s 100% happening,” Tangipa says. “Almost 83% of all water in the state is automatically pushed out for environmental purposes.”
California averages about 200 million acre-feet of water each year, Tangipa notes, but despite record rainfall, farms often get less than half of their allocations.
“We’ve prioritized so much environmental legislation that more than 80% of our water is pushed out immediately to the ocean, unnaturally,” he says. “Meanwhile, farmers get less water and more land goes out of production.”
Proponents of Current Water Flows
There are proponents of the current way the water flows, mainly for environmental reasons and to prevent saltwater contamination of freshwater sources.
California releases water into the ocean to prevent saltwater intrusion into freshwater supplies, protect endangered aquatic species and ecosystems, and maintain the delicate balance of the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta estuary, a critical source of drinking and irrigation water.
A portion of released water is also used for stormwater management to prevent flooding, as it can be difficult and impractical to capture and store all of it.
And those in favor of environmental water releases say it’s essential to support broader ecosystem benefits like water filtration and carbon sequestration, which are important for overall environmental health.
The Ripple Effect
The Central Valley of California is a powerhouse in food production for the U.S. That area alone produces approximately half of all the fruits and vegetables grown in the U.S., as well as a large portion of the nation’s nuts and other foods. When you break down the numbers, the Central Valley accounts for about 60% of the nation’s fruits and nuts, and about 30% of the nation’s vegetables.
For Thomas Putzel, who works with farmers across the Central Valley, the impact of regulations isn’t just measured in acre-feet. It’s measured in livelihoods and the food supply.
“The environmentalists try to say farmers are wasting water,” he says. “But when we look at what farmers provide, we’re planting forests. One acre of almonds will capture 18 metric tons of carbon a year. That’s like taking 29 million cars off the road.”
Putzel says California voters already approved a water bond to build new storage a decade ago, but no new projects have been built.
“Not one shovel has gone in the ground in 10 years,” he says. “Actually, they took some of that money and tore dams down.”
Meanwhile, permanent crops wither when water isn’t available, leaving behind dead orchards that invite pests and rodents into neighboring fields.
“SGMA’s not necessarily a bad thing,” Putzel says. “But you’ve asked growers to run a marathon with their legs tied together. People don’t understand; food doesn’t come from a grocery store. It comes from a farmer. If California stopped shipping produce for one week, our stores would be empty.”
“Is Farming in California’s Best Interest?”
For Erik Hansen, the question is bigger than water allocations or acreage lost.
“Government is probably the biggest problem right now,” he says. “It just seems California hasn’t really decided whether farming is in their best interest. Politicians like to say they’re for small business and small farming, but virtually every piece of legislation makes it more difficult to survive.”
As the Central Valley wrestles with the challenges of floods, drought and regulations, one reality is clear: The fate of these farms is tied not just to weather and soil but to political decisions that could shape the future of food in America.
