Farms left reeling after floods wash out crops
Growers assess damage, face delayed harvests
On Monday afternoon, Joe Schirmer canceled deliveries to restaurants and farmers’ markets from his popular farm, Dirty Girl Produce, and prepared for the latest atmospheric river set to slam Northern California. He nervously monitored a dry creek bed on one of his four Watsonville properties. During intense storms earlier this year, it had already filled with water and jumped its bank.
On Tuesday, it was just as Schirmer feared. Heavy rain and winds hit the region. The creek turned into a rushing river. It jumped its bed in a new spot, eating into rows of leeks and gouging an 8-foot chasm into what’s usually a road for the farm’s tractors. The damage will likely mean the loss of more than a half acre of land that can no longer be farmed, Schirmer said.
“It’s kind of irreparable,” he said. “I can’t imagine how we fix it.”
Many Northern California farms were hit hard by this week’s rainfall, which drenched crops and left flooded fields in its wake. The full extent of the damage remains to be seen, but it may have lasting effects on the farms that Bay Area diners and restaurants rely on for fresh fruits and vegetables.
In Monterey County, for example, where the Pajaro River levee broke and caused widespread devastation this week, the flooding was even worse than earlier this year, according to the Monterey County Farm Bureau, which is still trying to account for the fallout. In January, more than 15,000 acres of farmland in Monterey County flooded with over $330 million in damages, according to the group, which works with farmers.
“Other than stating that this week’s flooding damages are more extensive than January’s, we do not yet have any estimates on acres or monetary damages,” Monterey County Farm Bureau Director Norm Groot wrote in an email. “And there is more rain coming next week.”
The storms could also delay the arrival of some farms’ muchanticipated seasonal produce, such as strawberries and tomatoes.
On Wednesday, Poli Yerena of Watsonville’s Yerena Farms was emptying water from his berry fields and hoping for the best. Usually by this time of year, workers are picking strawberries there. But the rain means the farm is about a month behind schedule, and Yerena won’t know the full state of the strawberries until the fields dry out more. He hopes to have strawberries to bring to Bay Area farmers’ markets in about two weeks, but he’s not sure.
“But the weather is (still) changing,” he said. “I hope everything will be fine. Right now we don’t have any income yet. It’s been a long season for us.”
For strawberry farms in Monterey County, “this catastrophe hit at the worst possible time,” said Jeff Cardinale, communications director for the California Strawberry Commission. Farmers had borrowed money to prepare their fields and were getting ready to harvest in a few weeks.
“Farms face a massive cleanup. As soon as the cleanup is complete, farmers will begin the process of preparing the fields and starting over,” Cardinale said.
It’s also challenging financially for farm employees who can’t work during the storms, farmers said.
The cold, wet weather has pushed back strawberry season at Three Nunns Farm in Brentwood. This time last year, the Contra Costa County farm was open for its annual u-pick season, said owner Sam Nunn. He’s now hoping to open the farm stand in early April instead — which could change if more rain comes, as is predicted. The strawberry plants are healthy but need warmer, dry weather to start setting fruit, he said. It’s also been too wet to plant the other vegetables and fruit he sells at Three Nunns’ farm stand.
The delay isn’t devastating, but it’s not ideal, especially for a farm that relies heavily on seasonal business.
“You’re waiting longer to start getting your money back, which is not great,” he said.
Oya Organics in Hollister (San Benito County), which sells produce at many Bay Area farmers’ markets, launched a GoFundMe campaign this week after the Los Viboras Creek jumped its bank and flooded the farm’s fields and packing area. The flooding undid many months of labor, “washing away seedlings, supplies and equipment,” owner Marsha Habib wrote on the fundraising website. “The winter weather is unpredictable, but this winter has been the most difficult one since we started farming.” A video posted to Instagram shows dark, muddy water flowing through fields and plants swallowed by the rain. Habib did not respond to interview requests.
At Green Thumb Farms in San Juan Bautista (San Benito County), the storm flooded some fields and damaged the farm’s greenhouses, according to a GoFundMe campaign seeking financial assistance.
The wet weather brings not only damage for farms, but also slow days at farmers’ markets. San Francisco’s popular Ferry Plaza Farmers Market estimates that traffic drops by about half on rainy days.
“With this especially wet winter, that translates to a huge financial loss for our small farmers and food makers,” said Brie Mazurek, communications director for Foodwise, which operates the Ferry Building farmers’ markets.
Dirty Girl Produce is facing a nearly two-month backlog in production due to the weather, Schirmer said, with crops that were moved from the greenhouse to the fields later than usual and need time to mature. And the part of the field that was gouged out by the overflowing creek bed is where workers would usually plant more than 3 acres of the farm’s popular dryfarmed tomatoes. They’ll have to go somewhere else now, Schirmer said.
“It’s unbelievable, the erosion,” he said. “It’s not like anything we’ve had before.”