Berry Good Times Despite Drought
The 25th annual Strawberry Industry Recognition dinner hosted by the Santa Maria Valley Chamber of Commerce has become one of the biggest events of the year.
The Chamber says the annual event is to salute the innovation, hard work and community spirit of this important segment of the Santa Maria Valley.
Its become one of the hottest tickets in town with another sellout crowd that packed the Santa Maria Fairpark’s sprawling Convention Center.
According to the most recent Santa Barbara County Crop report, strawberries were by far the number one product in terms of volume and value in the county approaching nearly half a billion dollars a year in total production.
The Chamber says the workers and families that produce 90 percent of the nation’s strawberry supply are critically important to the local economy
“Over the last 20 to 25 years its almost tripled”, says longtime berry grower George Chavez, “I’d say back in 1990 there was probably about 5 thousand acres now there’s 12,000 close to 13,000 acres and that’s just fresh berries.”
The big berry bash comes as the Central Coast and the entire state cope with what Governor Brown is calling a statewide drought emergency.
The Governor has ordered an immediate 25% reduction in domestic water use but has, for the most part, exempted agriculture from the historic decree, something that has drawn fierce criticism and growing resentment across the state.
Agriculture uses as much as 80% of California’s fresh water supply every year.
“We are concerned, especially long-term”, Chavez says about the critical water situation, “even though we have switched over to drip-tip (irrigation) applications.”
Chavez and his fellow berry growers say they’ve been advocating and adopting various water conservations methods, like drip irrigation, long before the historic four year drought began.
“We’ve been doing that well over 25 years”, Chavez says, “so we have 20 percent less use of water in our fields.”
“Everything we grow is for consumers, that’s to eat”, adds local grower and Santa Barbara County Farm Bureau head Victor Tognazzini.
Tognazzini says cutting water supply to agriculture will lead to even higher food prices.
“When we have to cut back on our water supplies, and its necessary to have water to grow, so if we have to cut back on that there will be fewer products around”, Tognazzini says, “it’s a matter of supply and demand.”
The Santa Maria Valley Groundwater Basin is considered by many to be healthy and in good shape compared to other areas of the Central Coast and the state where agricultural production is being cut back.
Tognazzini says farmers, consumers and industry in general must become more efficient with water amid forecasts of so-called “mega-droughts” in the years ahead.
“For a bottle of water, a little plastic bottle of water, it takes 15 gallons of water to produce that bottle of water, that’s in the plastic and in the paper”, Tognazzini says, “we just have to get a lot smarter.”
