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While he doesn’t hang his hat solely on the loss of irrigation water, Wright continues to point to reduced water supplies as one of the main contributors to fewer planted acres in Fresno County over the past few years.
Wright does not have an accurate tally of fallowed acres or a total acreage count of productive farmland in the county as those numbers are difficult to record as growers make decisions one year to the next on what they will plant.
Fresno County Farm Bureau Chief Executive Officer Ryan Jacobsen says his organization does not have an accounting of unplanted acres, much less total farmable acres in the county. That figure could be publicly forthcoming as County Supervisor Andreas Borgeas asked Wright during his presentation for those figures.
Other factors in the lower crop value in 2015, according to Wright, include yield losses in some crops, individual crop values that declined when compared to the previous year, and fewer export opportunities due to world market challenges and a strong dollar relative to other currency that made buying U.S. commodities more difficult for foreign customers.
