Blog: Climate adaptation: match crops to climate
The megadrought in the West is a time of reckoning for farmers. … California is in a better position than western desert states, because some areas of the state have adequate rainfall. For California, the problem is not so much growing water-intensive crops, but growing them in the driest areas in the state. The arid scrubland on the southern floor of the San Joaquin Valley gets about 7-8 inches of rain on average. The farmland in this region was traditionally used for grazing and low-water use crops such as winter wheat. … The expansion of permanent crops has increased farm income, but has also been a major cause of groundwater depletion.