Megadrought in U.S. California threatens tomato industry

LOS ANGELES, Aug. 29 (Xinhua) -- Though California leads the world in the production of canned and processed tomatoes, the record-breaking drought currently dogging the U.S. western state is in danger of withering its once-bountiful tomato crop on the vine.

"You can't grow tomatoes without water," Mike Montna, president and CEO of the California Tomato Growers Association, told Xinhua last Friday, pointing out that tomatoes are 95 percent water. "There is not much of that in California these days."

"We need rain, desperately," he added.

Agriculture business in a desert climate is already challenging, he explained, but now climate change is creating higher temperatures for longer periods as well as temperatures that fluctuate wildly, and the business has become more challenging. This coupled with a diminishing supply of water is creating a recipe for disaster that's giving tomato growers the squeeze.

Tomatoes are one of the world's most popular recipe ingredients, with nearly 200 million metric tons consumed worldwide in the past year, according to Faostat, a database run by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).

Whole tomatoes go perfectly with many of America's favorite foods: pizza, hamburger, taco, burritos, as well as sandwich and salad of all kinds. Chopped tomatoes are a mainstay in salsa, guacamole, meatloaf, stews and casseroles, while tomato sauces are slathered on pasta, hot dogs, French fries, onion rings, potato skins, fish sticks, etc.

In fact, tomatoes are more ubiquitous in world cuisine than most people realize, pushing up demand by double digits each year. Though that might seem like good news for tomato growers, it isn't, explained Montna.

"Demand is off the charts," Montna said, "but the problem is, we can't deliver. Tomato production is actually going down in California. There's not enough water to plant more acres."

With California plunged into the worst drought in over 1,000 years, water supply is limited and dwindling.

Government water districts throughout the state are responsible for fairly dividing water resources between residential, commercial, industrial and agricultural interests. Strict controls are in place as to how much water each sector and region gets. When the water supply goes down, everyone gets back.

"There just isn't enough public water available to the agri sector to plant more acres of tomatoes. And private water is prohibitively expensive," Montna said.

California's "right to water" distribution system in the agriculture sector is based on seniority, Montna explained. "Some growers that used to get 75 percent are now only getting 18 percent, and some are getting zero."

It's risky being a tomato grower, with costs topping 4,800 U.S. dollars per acre, he said. When tomato growers can't afford to plant more acres and leave ground unplanted, their expenses still have to be paid, he explained. "It's like a landlord - his expenses don't go down when he has vacant apartments."

"It's hard to grow tomatoes right now," Montna added, citing problems with drought, inflation, fuel and fertilizer increases and supply chain issues, which remain disrupted by COVID-19, trade sanctions and even the conflict in Europe.

"Everything we use in daily life or farms, parts supplies, chemicals, fertilizers, has to be shipped in, so supply chain issues are big problem," he said.

California's Central Valley supplies 96 percent of America's total consumption of processed tomatoes for the U.S. retail, restaurant and commercial markets and 25 percent percent of the world's amount.

According to the recent inflation report from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the cost of spices, seasonings, condiments, and sauces rose by 14.2 percent year over year last month, outpacing the 8.5 percent increase in the consumer price index, while the research firm IRI reported that the price of tomato sauce was up 17 percent compared to a year ago during the same period, ketchup was 23 percent more expensive.

The United States is the fourth largest tomato producer in the world, behind global leader China, then India and Turkey, with two thirds of that supply coming from California and Florida.

"At end of the day, we have a commodity that people like to eat, some other commodities are in decline, but ours aren't," Montna said.

Consumers yearning for comfort food during the COVID-19 pandemic led to a boom in tomato products. "People can grab our products and make a nice meal for the family and don't have to be great cooks to do it," Montna said with a smile.

But that has wiped out surplus inventories, and will now leave more of the demand unmet, he added.

"There are going to be a lot of disappointed people out there who can't get the tomato products they need this coming year," he warned, urging state and federal governments to take steps to support the tomato industry.

California needs to prioritize tomatoes, Montna believed. "We need to make tomatoes a crop of choice to the growers in CA," he told Xinhua. "As a state and nation we need to figure out how to capture more water when its available to make that possible."

Some 96 percent of the tomato industry is on drip irrigation," Montna explained. "We can grow more tonnes per acre than other crops can. We maximizing every drop of water, but there is only so much we can do as farmers. After years of drought, we need a new infrastructure to catch, save, and distribute more water."

"We have 40 million people in California now and probably the same water infrastructure we had when we only had 20 million," he added.

He saw the need for a government bond issue to finance more dams and water storage and the infrastructure to carry rain and flood waters to reservoirs instead of losing it.

"We need to get out those golden shovels out now," he urged.