Agriculture industry takes steps to conserve water by working with the SCVWD
Published in the Sept. 2-15, 2015 issue of Morgan Hill Life
By Geoff Kober
Photo by Marty Cheek
Local farmer Erin Gil checks bell peppers in his drip-irrigated field in the Coyote Valley north of Morgan Hill.
As Ian Teresi hiked through a field of peppers, he stopped intermittently to check the loamy soil for water moisture and inspected the verdant leaves for insect pests. As the manager of George Chiala Farms, a 2,200-acre vegetable farm in southeast Morgan Hill, Teresi has had his share of worries about the four-year California drought and its significant impact on the agriculture industry. Many of his fellow South Valley farmers have had the same concerns for their livelihood.
“The lack of water in general is affecting me,” he said. “The drought is a multifaceted issue with a shortage of water, insect pressures and competition for land in the valley.”
George Chiala Farms is one of the biggest names in local agriculture, and has been on the forefront of water conservation for many years. In 2009, Teresi and Tim Chiala received the Agriculture Water Quality Alliance’s Stewardship Award for exceptional water quality protection and community leadership. And Chiala Farms is working with other farmers in the South Valley to combat the difficulties with limited water resources during the drought.
Although the Santa Clara County metropolitan area with its high-tech industry is one of the top five best performing economic areas in the world, according to a 2014 survey from the Milken Institute, the region’s agricultural industry has declined as the historic drought has reduced crop yields and increased costs for farmers.
As Morgan Hill residents drive past acres of corn, beans, leeks, garlic and peppers in the fields surrounding their growing community, many of them fail to realize they have a stake in the local farmers’ drought struggles, Teresi said.
“We still need to grow our crops. It’s our business, it’s how we survive,” he said. “We have people that draw a paycheck and bring it home to support their family. We have people we are trying to feed.”
Water district helping farmers
Andy Mariani inspects fruit on his orchard trees. Photo by Geoff Kober
During the drought, the Santa Clara Valley Water District has been helping South Valley farmers better manage irrigation for their crops by offering free property surveys and providing watering recommendations. With the prediction of heavy El Niño winter rains coming to the West Coast this fall, the county’s alarmingly low reservoirs such as Anderson Lake might soon begin to refill. This will mean local farms next year might have easier access to irrigation, and this would help stimulate Santa Clara County’s once thriving agricultural economy. South Valley residents and farmers also rely on groundwater from the massive aquifer lying beneath the valley. The water district estimates that this aquifer, which stretches from the San Francisco Bay to Gilroy, holds two times the volume of all the region’s 10 reservoirs combined.
In March, the water district required all commercial, agricultural and residential properties to cut their previous water use by 30 percent to help minimize the drought’s impact on the region, said Jerry De La Piedra, water supply planning and conservation manager for the SCVWD. Morgan Hill met this target — and established a county best — compared to 2013 usage levels. In July, the city recorded a 42 percent reduction in water usage.
Andy Mariani drives through his Morgan Hill orchard. Photo by Geoff Kober
“For agriculture (purposes), water use is 8 to 9 percent of overall county water use,” said De La Piedra. “The water district’s requirement of a 30 percent reduction is a county-wide call,” meaning they required farmers to cut back nearly one-third as well. To reduce water use by an amount this significant, the SCVWD is supporting farmers in various ways including a free evaluation of irrigation, he said.
“We partner with Loma Prieta Resource Conservation District to offer a free mobile irrigation lab program for growers in Santa Clara County,” he said.
The Mobile Lab: System Efficiency Test Program includes a one-time field irrigation system evaluation to check equipment, review water scheduling, and measure water distribution uniformity in the field. The program’s contractor compiles the information into a report for the farmers to use to improve their water use efficiency.
In addition to the mobile irrigation lab program, the water district aids farmers to reach 30 percent water conservation through a more in-depth monitoring program throughout the growing season. New irrigation equipment is expensive, so the water district helps farmers on a tight budget obtain money to upgrade inefficient irrigation systems.
“We install equipment including soil moisture sensors and data loggers to monitor water use, and make recommendations for improvements in terms of water scheduling and maintenance as well as equipment upgrades,” De La Piedra said. “We work with the growers to assist them to apply for grants provided through the Natural Resource Conservation Service to make equipment upgrades.”
Erin Gil, a sod producer at Morgan Hill’s The Grass Farm and president of the Santa Clara Valley Farm Bureau, took advantage of the SCVWD’s program and was impressed by the results.
“The mobile lab actually comes out and tests for leaks on the irrigation lines,” he said. “The new drip irrigation system they came up with, the way it was designed and installed, is roughly 91 percent efficient, compared to overhead irrigation systems that are roughly 65 percent efficient.”
Value of crops goes beyond growing crops
Photo by Geoff Kober
Erin Gil, owner of The Grass Farm, adjusts a valve in a pipe used to drip-irrigate a field of peppers on his farm. Drip irrigation cuts down significantly on water loss compared to sprinklers.
A report by the Santa Clara County Consumer and Environmental Protection Agency said that there are now 16,000 acres of irrigated cropland in Santa Clara County, and about 1,100 farms. Water efficiency is extremely important because the agriculture industry is one of the major job producers in the county. The 2014 Santa Clara Country Crop Report found that the gross value of the county’s agricultural production for 2014 was more than $276 million. The report also includes 38 registered Farmers’ Markets in Santa Clara County supplying local produce to Silicon Valley communities. Growers in Santa Clara County provide crops locally as well as to 56 other countries around the world.
The Santa Clara County Consumer and Environmental Protection Agency recently assessed the overall economic value of farming in the county. Eric Wylde, the deputy agricultural commissioner for Santa Clara County, said that, in addition to the value of the crops themselves, farmers also contribute to the economy by purchasing soil amendments, pesticides and water.
Explained Wylde, “And it’s not only what the farmers are purchasing to produce their crops, but also what they are paying their employees and how the employees spend it on housing, food — the life necessities.”
Costs in the agricultural assessment include drought-mindful techniques Ian Teresi uses on the farm such as cover cropping and adding plant material to the soil that helps prevent water from evaporating into the air. “If you increase organic matter in the soil,” Teresi explained, “you increase the moisture-holding capacity of that soil so you have to irrigate less.”
Teresi described the four-year drought as a complex problem with an impact greater than just a restricted water supply. Chiala Farms fields have also faced a greater number of insect pests.
“There hasn’t been a wet, cold spell large enough to kill a large population of multiple different types of insects in four to five years,” Teresi said.
The drought is also increasing the price of farmland because of the currently reliable, but plummeting groundwater supply, Teresi said. Most farmers in the area lease land to grow their crops. Added competition for this land is creating a rise in the cost of their leases.
“People come over here from the Central Valley offering land owners a high amount of money, and as soon as the drought is over, they are going to go back over to the Central Valley, and leave us high and dry paying more rent,” Teresi said. “There is a multifaceted issue with this drought — and I wish it would rain so it will all be over.”
Wet winter could help and hurt
The prediction of a strong El Niño event might grant Teresi’s wish. Climate change and the drought are both creating problems for agriculture in the South Santa Clara Valley. Weather scientists, however, have been monitoring the warming waters of the eastern Pacific Ocean, mainly along the equator. This indicates the possibility of a major series of winter storms, which could help alleviate some of the West Coast’s drought challenges, according to Steve Anderson, a forecaster from the National Weather Service in Monterey.
“The current El Niño that’s happening now will affect us in the wintertime once it starts to rain,” he said. “What that will do is give a better than 50 percent chance of having above normal rainfall — but exactly how much rainfall it’s impossible to say.”
The predicted rain is likely to come with potential environmental impacts including an increase in high-gust winds, more powerful surf, and warmer or cooler temperatures. An increase in rainfall from El Niño might help end the drought and reduce the pressures on farming, he added.
The potential of El Niño-caused flooding, land erosion and other challenges resulting from an increase in rainfall could hurt the agricultural industry, as indicated by major storms in the past. Andy Mariani, owner of Andy’s Orchard in Morgan Hill, recalls the last strong El Niño in the early ‘80s. “We had flooding, our trees were underwater for several days and they died,” he said. “We had root rot and fungal diseases during the blossom, and so didn’t get a crop anyway.”
Whether there is too much or too little rain, farmers will continue needing water to produce crops — crops that strengthen the economy and provide food to the region. Resource management and a positive attitude are necessities for everyone working in the industry, a fluctuating business dependent on uncontrollable natural events, Teresi said.
“You just have to keep your head up,” he said. “If you dwell on it, you’ll go nuts.”
Geoff Kober is a San Francisco State University graduate. He wrote this article for Morgan Hill Life as part of a three-part series.
