California growers aren’t getting a break from Mother Nature. Nearly every winter crop is affected by the continued frigid weather. KPBS Reporter Ed Joyce has details.
Oranges. Avocados. Fresh-cut flowers. All are taking a hit from freezing temperatures. Eric Larson is the executive director of the San Diego County Farm Bureau. He says farmers are doing all they can to save their fruit.
Larson: Some of the citrus growers have been able to use their wind machines to move air and moving air is much less damaging than sitting cold air. Other than that, the other growers are just kind of out there just hoping for the best and hoping that the duration of the cold isn’t too long.
Fruit growers in the Imperial County are fighting a losing battle. Temperatures in some areas have dipped as low as 12-degrees. The executive director of the Imperial County Farm Bureau is Nicole Rothfleisch. She says farmers will lose most of this year’s lemon and orange crop.
Rothfleisch: Every single crop grown in the Imperial Valley with the exception of Bermuda grass which is dormant in the winter has been affected.
Rothfleisch says farmers hope higher prices for their fruit will help balance their crop losses. She says the freeze also hits workers in the pocketbook.
Rothfleisch: Where it’s really going to hurt people is the non-farmers that are involved. The packing houses that aren’t going to be handling near as much, the farm workers who won’t have as much hours to put in harvesting.”
She says this is the worst freeze to hit Imperial County crops since the early 1960s. She says it’ll take several days for farmers to know the full value of the damage.
Ed Joyce, KPBS News.
