California agriculture faces serious threats from climate change, study finds
Over the past decade, California farmers have been seeing symptoms of climate change in their fields and orchards: less winter chill, crops blooming earlier, more heat waves and years of drought when the state baked in record temperatures.
Scientists say California agriculture will face much bigger and more severe impacts due to climate change in the coming decades. In a new study, University of California researchers said those effects range from lower crop yields to warming that will render parts of the state unsuitable for the crops that are grown there today.
Two-thirds of the nation’s fruits and nuts are produced in California, along with more than a third of the country’s vegetables. The team of researchers said the warming climate is projected to hit many of those crops hard and will require localized efforts to help growers adapt and prepare for risks.
“The urgency of addressing these issues has become critically important,” the scientists said in the study.
Their review of scientific research examined climate trends and the current and future effects on farming in California. They consulted 89 research papers and reports, and presented a list detailing what studies have found about impacts on agriculture.
Among the key findings, more than half of the Central Valley is projected to be no longer suitable for growing crops like apricots, peaches, plums and walnuts sometime around the middle of the century. By the end of the century, that’s projected to grow to 90 percent or more of the valley.