California’s Central Valley constitutes 1 percent of the agricultural land in the United States yet it harvests nearly a quarter of the nation’s farmed products.
The 50-mile wide, 450-mile-long breadbasket is irrigated by an intricate series of river impoundments and canals that are regulated by federal and state agencies.
California, like much of the West, withered during a multi-decade drought that, over its past three years, featured the region’s driest span on record.
Water was so scarce that Central Valley irrigation was often scaled back with farmers forced to rely on groundwater, where and when available.
This aerial image shows a truck as it drives across a flooded road past Central Valley farmland along the Tule River in Tulare County during a winter storm near Corcoran, Calif., on March 21, 2023. (Patrick T. Fallon/AFP via Getty Images)
But now the valley, like much of California, is flooded after a three-month spasm of “atmospheric rivers” swamped previously parched farmlands, citrus orchards, nut groves, and livestock grazing pastures….