North Bay loses 11 dairy farms partly due to drought

Despite coming off a disastrous winter that cost California about $1 billion in damage, North Bay farmers and ranchers may have paid a heftier price from the last few years of drought — with almost a dozen in Sonoma and Marin counties throwing in the towel.

The agriculture business losses, in part, resulted in a 3% decrease in total gross value of $94.1 million as shown in the 2022 Marin County Crop and Livestock Report released Wednesday. Farmers, ranchers, academics and government agriculture management blame the devastating drought for the decline, which presented significant hurdles by mainly reducing the amount of feed for the livestock.

Organic dairy farms in the county absorbed the biggest hit, with their cows’ milk that contributes to a third of the total production experiencing a 5% drop in value to $31.9 million in 2022.

“Everyone’s been affected by the drought,” said Randi Black, a dairy systems adviser with the UC Cooperative Extension in Santa Rosa. Black visits farms and hears their plights. Of the 11 dairy farms that have gone under, four were in Marin and seven in Sonoma County, she confirmed.

Sonoma County expects to release its crop and livestock report in late September.

Black said many farmers have been faced with difficult choices if the land dates back multiple generations. But many in up-and-coming generations have passed on the option to keep the family farm going, she pointed out.

It’s a hard ask, given the hard work and ongoing water availability issues, many stakeholders have said.

“They look at the water availability and the cost of feed and wonder where’s the line drawn in the sand. And they don’t have the next generation to give this to,” Black said.

The perplexing drought problem urged farmers John and Karen Taylor at Bivalve Dairy outside Point Reyes to sell off a third of the herd on her fourth-generation homestead over the last year and a half. It also convinced John to get creative with his Cal Poly engineering background to concoct new ways to preserve water and multiply livestock food sources.

Marin County even borrowed from Sonoma County’s primary water source at one point to survive the hot summer. And when it does rain, Taylor said the stormwater runoff is “too much, too fast.”

“More will be on the chopping block,” Taylor said, referring to failing farms. “When you have consecutive years of drought, you won’t be having the forage in the state to feed the animals.”

When farmers elect to buy the hay, it’s costly — especially trucking it in from as far away as Wyoming. Then, that $8- to $9,000 load of hay becomes $15,000 because of demand and fuel costs, among other factors.

Cattle ranchers have been presented with the same water scarcity problem, but experienced an over $1 million rise in total gross value ($15 million) year over year in Marin County.

Loren Poncia of Stemple Creek Ranch attributes that trend to a low stock to begin with, so the 2022 report works to correct the low inventory from previous years.

“The cattle market is on fire,” he said. “The demand is still good.”

Poncia hopes the retail price of beef doesn’t rise with the wholesale rate as a result because consumers will switch to other types of meat. He has already seen more demand in ground beef versus steak because of their price differential.

The longtime rancher contends the rainfall’s timing is just as important to cultivating the feed as the amount. With the rain lasting well into the spring, the ideal feeding conditions were stalled. Still, he’s grateful it rained at amounts of a normal year.

“The growth came late,” he said.

Ditto, from Brian Dolcini, a dairy farmer who’s the president of the Marin County Farm Bureau. The farmer noticed the same winter-spring trend, citing the cold temperatures also made the grass grow later than usual.

“On the good side, all the ponds are full. We got pretty hammered,” he said.

Future drought periods are what keep him up at night. Farmers do-or-die scenarios require help from government programs.

“Without them, we’d be dead meat,” he said.

To illustrate the need, the Marin Agricultural Land Trust, a nonprofit ag support organization, provided grant funds for water conservation projects on the farm to 75 recipients. The Drought Resilience and Water Security program (DRAWS) has allocated $950,000 in funding. The other, Stewardship Assistance Program, (SAP) has committed $1.6 million.

But one authority ranks above all — Mother Nature.

“We are 110% at the mercy of the weather,” said Eric Rubenstahl, MALT associate director of stewardship. “This winter with the rain, we got eased a lot of the problems. But there’s still a threat.”

That’s why Marin County ag supporters and stakeholders might have breathed a collective sigh of relief upon hearing that, as of June 22, Marin Water’s seven reservoirs stand at 96.93% capacity, Marin Water reported. The historical average for this time of year is 84.61%.

The water agency has developed a long-term plan called the Strategic Water Supply Assessment that was approved by its board in February. It prioritizes water supplies, including conservation, operations efficiency, increased storage, finding new methods of delivering and examining the use of Sonoma’s supplies.

Options are welcome to Marin County Agriculture Commissioner Stefan Parnay, who supports a proactive approach to getting the most out of the county’s water supply in case another drought period rolls around like the one of 2012-2106.

“In times when things are good, in the winter, this is the time when we should be thinking about the next drought,” he said.

That would be now.

Indeed, drought periods as studied by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration have recorded not just drought years, but time frames of drought that have showed a pattern of four- to seven-year periods. The issue has become a community-based problem, as NOAA cites in its first report released June 22 that connects drought as a public health nuisance. In the report, drought is linked to 4,256 deaths from 1980 to 2022.

Susan Wood covers law, cannabis, production, tech, energy, transportation, agriculture as well as banking and finance. She can be reached at 530-545-8662 or susan.wood@busjrnl.com