| More News
|
Row crops with black plastic. DWR photo |
Machine harvesting of tomatoes. DWR photo |
Now, due to automation and a change in crops, most of these jobs are gone. No more setting siphons to irrigate row crops. No more hand picking tomatoes or grapes. Now most orchards and vineyards are irrigated by drip irrigation and tomatoes and vineyards are harvested by machine. Troughs are filled by high speed pumps on wheels, sucking water from canals and pumping it into furrows with checks to contain the flow. Instead of weed control being cared for by a field hand with a hoe, black plastic sheeting now does the job while heating the ground at the same time, increasing growth and yield.
Even so, actual farm employment is up for the valley. The increase is due to the ever expanding acreage in cultivated land as the corporate agribusinesses attempt to tame more and more of the desert, increasing the size of their orchards and vineyards annually with an associated demand for more and more water, with only a minimal increase in labor costs.
While farm employment is up, an increase in unemployment in Nunes' district in other occupational areas mirrors what is occurring in the rest of the U.S. due to the economic downturn. Is it worse in his district? Probably so. Regions already suffering chronic high unemployment almost always suffer greater economic hardships when things go bad. Flint and Detroit Michigan, while not farm towns are prime examples of what happens to communities with chronic high unemployment when the economy collapses.
The history of farming is from what was once a labor intensive operation of the 1920's occupying the efforts of 30% of the U.S. population to the automated agribusinesses of the 21st century. This became apparent in the Midwest in the 1970's as numerous once bustling small towns started disappearing from the map. Their stores and houses sit vacant, ghost towns marking a different time in America. While the mules, the farmers and the towns are gone, the farms are still there, now much bigger businesses, operated by corporations rather than family farmers, employing few, less than 1% of the U.S. population.
If the amount of water allocated to Congressman Nunes' district was increased ten times it would not solve his district's problems. They are much deeper than a lack of water. The jobs he seeks are gone forever. Instead of demanding more water Congressman Nunes needs to find the vision to work toward solving the long standing reasons for the valley's extended history of high unemployment and lack of real opportunity for advancement beyond opportunities for seasonal farm labor and a way of life that no longer exists.
To be continued... Next week, "The truth About California's Water"