Say “No” to Avocados?!
We are nestled in the mountains of inland north San Diego County. A light breeze has drifted through the orchard next to our satellite truck most of the day. I can picture myself sitting in a hammock strun between two trees with a book in hand. While the normalities of everyday life may not be available (Internet access, restaurants), a spring day in the clean air and amongst the agricultural is truly delightful. We have already reported live for FOX, FOX Radio and FOX Business eight times, with more to come.
Our story should concern every American, from sea to shining sea, mountain range to orchard, because as California farmers run out of water and these trees run out of time, the sounds of saws now echo through once serene groves of hass avocados. As owner Jerome Stehly said to me “You want your food grown close to home. You don’t want all of your food grown offshore or being put on ships and being shipped for weeks. Fresh produce needs to come fresh.”
According to Brian Thomas at the Metropolitan Water District, “The first time that we’ve actually called upon the growers to cut back 30% is this year, 2008. It’s in response to lower water supplies primarily from the state water project.”
The California project taps water from a variety of sources. Even in a relatively normal rain year, water remains scarce in these parts, with the Colorado River being tapped more than ever before and the California aqueduct periodically shut down to protect endangered fish. That means in places like Valley Center California, northeast of San Diego, family farmers like the Stehly brothers are now forced to cut down a significant number of their avocado’s because the tree saps more water than most other crops.
Brother Noel Stehly says, “We’re not sure that the water will be there. So it’s a guessing game at this point, but farmers are a resilient people and we keep on trying.” Even though they have been sawed down, avocados are a jungle tree and they can regrow from a stump to produce crops in just 3 years. But with a shortage of water here in California, many farmers are either yanking these stumps out and planting a different crop … or putting in nothing at all.
Farmers hope the water shortage can be solved soon, by conservation, and improving storage and delivery methods. In the meantime, while the trend to cut continues, the resolve to re-grow hasn’t gone down with the trees. “We’re still here, we want to farm and we think we have the best tasting and best quality fruit,” says Jerome.
But the concern now is that the lack of water could spread and impact other crops, from citrus to melons. And if that happens here … expect to pay more at the store.
Adam Housley has been with FNC since 2001 as a Los Angeles-based
correspondent. He has covered news ranging from wildfires in California
to political unrest in Venezuela and was one of the few reporters who
witnessed the execution of Stanley “Tookie” Williams. 
No food for humans so “endangered fish” can be protected?! Are you kidding me? Species die out from time to time, but there are certainly others to take their place, even if it doesn’t happen in our specific lifetime. And I love avocados, but I can certainly live without them. But the people of California will get what they deserve if the economy of their state crashes because farmers can’t water their crops due to trying to protect some fish. They have gone along with this ecological crap gone berserk due to a MINORITY of people who are almost holding us all hostage, and they won’t give up until every human either starves to death or dies because they didn’t have enough carbon credits to exchange carbon dioxide for oxygen to breathe! P.T. Barnum is proved right again and again…except this time this ECOLOGICAL HOAX has sucked in millions!
After all the avocados are gone, we might have to resort to eating those endangered fish…
Sometimes wonder if the goverment want anything we eat grown in the United States Of America. Its all shipped in so it can’t be fresh. Goverent of U.S.A please help these farmers to grow crops here. We are doing more to help other countries then our OWN PEOPLE. THINK THINK
With gasoline/diesel prices pushing the price of food out of sight, all we need is a crop shortage due to water concerns. It is bad enough that we are creating problems by making ethanol out of vital food substances impacting everything from livestock feed to bread and tortillas. We need to completely replace the congress (both houses if possible) with people who actually think before they legislate.
We drive bigger cars because we have legislated air bags in the front which kill our kids. We need car seats for the children so we need to have a bigger vehicle to put them in the back seat. I can just see using mass transit to drop your child off at the babysitter and then go to work. Stupid, stupid us for letting a group of elitist tell us how to live. Now they are telling us we have to give up domestically grown food (the safest in the world) because they have built homes in Vegas, Arizona and CA to the point of stupidity and a “fish” may have to migrate or die. Absolutely stupid.
Kuddos to the woodworker!!! What is next for the enviromentalist to attack? No eggs or no beer! Who knows, but we see the effect they have done to our energy prices and our food prices due to their wackiness. They always say there is a cause and effect but they never offer a solution. Just craziness. And what about all the sold out politicians in Washington who collect $175,000+ yearly in our tax money and sell themselves off to big business and interest. Where are the true porstitutes? The gasoline prices will continue to go up and they will reccomend that we use avocados for bio-fuel instead of nacho dip. Then we will really be up against the wall.
At least the water being saved in Cali is going to protect a fish in Cali! In Georgia we do without water so some stupid clam in Flordia can have plenty of water!!! What a joke. I hope Gore’s global warming gets here soon. All those melting polar ice caps should help reduce ocean wate salinity to the point where we can just drink the oceans. HA! P.S. Think high gas prices are about global demand? Do a little google research and see how much oil usage has gone up in India and China since 2004…ANSWER: barely 1/10 of 1% You can thank speculators for the wild run up!
Later- G Dawg
Why do I have the feeling the trees are being sacrificed to keep the golf courses green?
Sacrifice the trees! Sacrifice the fish! But for God’s sake don’t use one drop less for the golf courses!
Californians get what they deserve. They want to save everything, and in that process are actually destroying the American way of life. I’m sure a large percentage of Californians are decent people, but unfortunately for them they are going down with morally decadent minority who rule the state. The world that remains will do just fine without avocados.
Frank Rios
No Beer? death to environmentalists!!!!
We NEED USA Avocados - Last week I finally found some at Wal-Mart. It was wonderful to be able to eat an avocado again. I do not buy food grown in other countries, and have been starved for good, real food. Please - PLEASE - don’t give up on growing avacados. It has been determined that they are VERY Good for us.
Okay I got it burn the trees and cook the fish, I bet you’ll get your water back. I agree the sooner California shoots it’s self the head the better off we will all be. Then maybe the enviro wacko’s can feed on themselves.
I remember having grown up in San Diego, areas like Valley Center, Temecula, Escondido and most all areas north and east of San Diego proper did not need or use water as they are now.
Whose fault is the current need for water to grow crops in a semi-arid landscape? Who is responsible for the permitting and zoning of these areas - Should we lay it on greedy get rich quick developers, inept city/county/state land use planners, the people who had a dream to make a living off the land
and now are facing losing their dream for lack of foresight.
Or does the blame rest on all californians for not taking the unpopular and contentious course of setting limits on resourse usage and being steadfast when those limits are challenged.
Golf courses!!!! El Paso is the same. We get 9 - 10 inches of rain a year and they keep putting in golf courses. Now why is it we are having water restrictions? HMMMM….
Since there is only so much water available, then something has to give. Maybe if someone started talking about population control as well as resource management then there would be adequate resources for a sustainable number of people, for wildlife, and for the avocados. But, hey, lets just squawk about the problem and dodge the real underlying issue.
So really, when is the last time you bought fish from America? Oh My Goodness No, America grows something that is used in America! (sarcasim here) So then some Agency (gov’t?) says “That can’t be right” so they figured out a way to stop that. After all, America must save the world…….Who then will save Us? I guess we can IMPORT Avacados too huh? From China? Will they then be leaded Avacados? Just a question, what do we EXPORT that the world can not live without? I think it is about time that we think about America!
Less than 80 miles from those avocado trees is Borrego Springs. A town of about 3,000 residence in the desert east of San Diego. There, the agri-businesses are over-drafting the aquifer by 5 times the annual recharge. They are literally sucking the life out from under the town. There is no reasonable or beneficial reason for these agri-businesses to continue to do this but the water board in this town is taking the politically correct path to destruction. I guess there is one benefit. The agri-busnesses do provide work for all the illegal aliens in the area.
Here in Colorado it’s almost impossible to find an Avocado not grown in Mexico, and many of us refuse to buy Mexican grown products. It’s sad that California, once the leader in such foods has allowed a misguided group of overzealous folks to destroy their economy and their future. Perhaps once they complete the annexation to Mexico they can once again start sending us Avocados.
Born and raised in Southern Cal. There is enough water in the Sacramento delta area to water all of California with much to spare, but, all the liberal nimby whiners in Northern California vote any water project down.I now live in Arizona, not as many people same amount of whiners. Just like gas , when food prices get high enough, many will move to another country, maybe take over Mexico.
In an insignificant amount of time, humans will be extinct as well, so I don’t see what the fuss about the fish is all about.
Environmentalist wackos and over population - welcome to the third world annex of Mexico!! It will only get worse. The greatest threat to the world is over population, not a trumped up global warming liberal agenda. The US was not in danger of this threat until the illegal alien invasion began.
Take a long view outside to the West. Yes, that’s the Great Pacific Ocean; there is no shortage of water. Many of us are clamoring to convert the salt water to useful fresh as have most steam vessels. We should convince our legislators to approve the creation of nuclear powered desalination plants along our California coast to supply the heat exchange equipment to facilitate the economical transfer via boilers and evaporators of the plentiful salt water to fresh. The studies have been done but the political response has been negative. Stop cutting down trees. Instead, let’s use our ingenuity to creat, not destroy.
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Take a long view outside to the West. Yes, that’s the Great Pacific Ocean; there is no shortage of water. Many of us are clamoring to convert the salt water to useful fresh as have most steam vessels. We should convince our legislators to approve the creation of nuclear powered desalination plants along our California coast to supply the heat exchange equipment to facilitate the economical transfer via boilers and evaporators of the plentiful salt water to fresh. The studies have been done but the political response has been negative. Stop cutting down trees. Instead, let’s use our ingenuity to creat, not destroy.
California’s problem is population, and the destruction of the natural habitat. If you want to live somewhere to have a lawn and trees etc, YOU DON’T MOVE TO THE DESERT!!! Bunch of idots live in CA, glad I don’t anymore.
What gets me is all the water that is used for landscaping…..recent articles in the Lancaster, CA paper stated that between 50% and 70% of domestic and municipal water usage was for “outdoor” usage (landscape, washing cars etc). Add to that, all of the swimming pools and other things that we feel we “must have” in the desert……and this is one of the results. We need to shift our focus from “wants” to “needs” (make the necessities of life, like growing food, a higher priority than having green grass in the desert).
Sounds like we better have a crash program to save the water that falls in our counties—water storage (DAMS) to keep it from wasting out to sea during the few big storms that we have so seldom.
Ventura county should rebuild matilija and put two new dams on the Sespe and our water problems would be largely solved!
We need more dams and settling basins to save what is falling in the counties when the big rains come.
This is a real shame that these people have to cut them down or plant other crops because of the water. Isn’t there any other alternatives to cutting these prescious trees and fruit down?
HEADS UP FOLKS! THIS IS JUST THE BEGINNIG! WATER IS A LUXURY AND WE NEED TO TAKE CARE NOT TO CONTAMINATE THE WATER SYSTEMS THAT WE DRINK! ALL OF THE DRUG DEALERS THAT MAKE METH POUR THEIR CRUD INTO THE CREEKS, LAKES, AND WATER SYSTEMS.
STOP DRUGS NOW!
50 years of unregulated, uncontrolled residential “growth” in a region that is, for all intents and purposes, a desert.
An organization called the “Metropolitan Water District” that has nothing to do with ensuring water supplies, rather, when pressed (and only when you squeeze them) the MWD grudgingly admits that they sell “subscriptions” to water…
A group of communities run by “Supervisors” that are so well paid by the developers, that they happily sign off on Environmental Impact Reports that regularly say that those new housing developments, those big diesel warehouse complexes will have “No impact” on Water, Waste water, solid waste, traffic and air pollution. A group of politicians that, rather than seem “unfriendly” to more building, accept bribes to approve building and watch the future of the area become dust in the wind.
Zero Growth was an initiative 25 years ago that the politically-correct pundits said was not necessary.
Guess what? High price to pay for tuition.
The City of San Bernardino, Calif has so much underground water, that it is having to pump it out (North Lake Project) as it is an earthquake hazarad (liquefaction). The municipal water district can’t seem to get the required government money to finish the project and don’t know where they will sell the water once they start pumping! Maybe they should pipe it down to Valley Center to irrigate the avocados or, perhaps they should knock down the houses where the San Bernardino orchards used to be and use the water to reestablish the orchards.
In the meantime we continue to make our own water crisis by sending billions of gallons of half-cleaned sewer water out to the ocean instead of cleaning it and recharging our lakes and aquifers. Smart, aren’t we???
G-Dawg- Georgia hasn’t put forth an effort to conserve water flowing thru Atlanta since that area’s growth explosion in the 80’s. Don’t blame a little clam in Florida for your water woes- don’t blame the Apalachicola river oysters or the people who rely on that water for drinking, either. Blame your own stupid politicians who ignored the coming water crisis for the last decade and refused to do anything about it.
And Kerasin- many golf courses use effluent (treated, recycled wastewater) to keep the grass green. Vegas does a good job of reusing water, more cities should do the same. And rather than watering entire orchards, growers should look to more efficient means of watering- at the roots of the trees, below the surface to minimize evaporation.
I see a lot of people are upset by this story and find it hard to believe the government is requiring farmers to cut back their crops. But, hello people….you live in an artifically enhance desert environment. Farmers should not be growing crops where they can’t grow on their own. The West is dying. Cities like Las Vegas and Phoenix are going to be in even worse shape! Farmers take approximately 90% of all fresh water supplies in California, while the residents are forced to cut back. Now it’s time for Farmers to pay the price. You want to live in a desert by the ocean? Well, it’s time to face that you’re going to have to pay a bigger toll than ever with high crop prices. Sorry, but we created this mess!
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