California drought wipes out much of Sacramento Valley rice crop
Don Bransford has been growing rice in the fertile Sacramento Valley for 42 years. Not this summer. California’s worsening drought has cut so deeply into water supplies on the west side of the Valley that Bransford and thousands of other farmers aren’t planting a single acre of rice. … It’s spring in the Sacramento Valley, normally the season for planting rice. It’s the region’s most important crop, a $900 million-a-year business that employs thousands of workers and puts Valley agriculture on a global stage.
Related article: