SAN DIEGO (KGTV) — California's drought is driving up prices at grocery stores and restaurants, causing farmers to pay more for water, and they're passing that cost on to the rest of us.
On Tuesday, the California State Board of Food and Agriculture is meeting to find more ways to conserve water.
“When you add extreme weather events and drought it's made it challenging from the farmer perspective,” says Enrico Ferro.
He has owned an avocado grove in Valley Center for more than 20 years. And he doesn’t think things will get better any time soon.
“A little doom and gloom because if nothing changes it's just going to get worse," said Ferro.
As the West Coast specifically California deals with dire drought conditions, looking at the most recent map released by the US Drought monitor.
You can see that San Diego County is mostly in a moderate drought, but there’s a huge portion of the state that’s either in extreme drought or exceptional drought.
And the California State Board of Food and Agriculture anticipates by 2040, the State could lose up to 10% of the state’s water supply because of a hotter and drier climate.
Ferro believes more has to be done at the state and local levels to help solve these problems. While he supports the different efforts to produce recycled water. He says that can’t directly help farmers.
He adds, “Because we don't have a separate system for moving the water it really has to stay where it's recycled. And the water is only recycled to secondary it's not potable or drinkable and it's expensive to recycle.”
