STORY: California's historic drought has threatened crops, driving up prices on produce and putting another strain on budgets already stretched thin by inflation.
"A tomato crop will take about 24 to 28 inches of water to grow the way we're doing it. And if we don't have that water, we just won't grow it."
Aaron Barcellos planted just a quarter of the 2,000 acres of his family's fourth generation farm in central California. This summer, he harvested tomatoes two weeks early to prevent further drought damage.
He says this year's tomato crop is only 10 to 15 percent of what it would normally be.
"Right now, we're in a field that we're harvesting probably two weeks early because the heat has just brought it on sooner and these tomatoes are starting to go bad where they're not going to be usable if we don't get them off pretty soon."
Central California - an area known as the U.S. salad bowl - has suffered from a lack of rain and snow, and restricted water supplies from the Colorado River have withered summer crops like tomatoes and onions. Leafy greens grown in winter are also threatened, with no end in sight.
The rise in food prices in 2022 helped drive U.S. inflation to its highest levels in 40 years.
California's drought, on top of Hurricane Ian ravaging citrus and tomato crops in Florida, is likely to push food costs even higher.
"It's tough. It's not fun."
R. Greg Pruett is a sales and energy manager at Ingomar Packing Company, a tomato products supplier.
"And as the crop gets shorter and shorter, there becomes times when you have to have conversations with customers about not being able to pack their entire volume, which is something that we very much like to avoid. But in situations like this, when you know you're dealing with Mother Nature and she doesn't cooperate, then, you know, sometimes those are tough conversations that you need to have."
The most recent drought in California began in 2020, worsening with the Central Valley's driest January and February in recorded history.
"Water is our number one resource. In California, we're basically a desert out here in the Central Valley. We get 6 to 8 inches of rainfall a year on average, and we haven't seen that since 2017, 2018. So we can't grow any of these crops you see behind us without water."
