California’s Thirsting Farmland

This summer, Todd Allen's only crop will be Pima cotton.

He and his brother, Joel, usually also grow cantaloupes and, later in the season, winter wheat on about 600 acres or so. But this year, they and hundreds of others will get no water from the reservoirs that sustain farming in the Central Valley, where much of the nation's fresh fruits, nuts and vegetables are grown.

Mr. Allen says he will give his cotton crop just "one shot of water when it gets to a certain height."

So they will forgo melons. And a question mark hangs over winter wheat.

Heading into the third year of a prolonged drought, the Allens are among the many California farmers forced to make dire choices that could leave asmuch as 800,000 acres, or about 7 percent of the state's cropland, fallow. While some think that estimate may be inflated so early in the planting season, the consensus is that drier and drier seasons are on the horizon.

A recent report on prospective planting from the federal Department of Agriculture forecast a20 percent declinein California's rice crop and a 35 percent decline in cotton this year from last year's crop.

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Taxonomy

• Water Efficiency
• Irrigation