Northwest drought forcing hard choices on farmers

GRANGER, Yakima County — Tom Carpenter picked at a bud on a Granny Smith apple tree, blooming and unpruned. The Central Washington farmer didn't bother to cultivate this particular block of apples after learning his water would be rationed this summer because of drought.

Months of below-average precipitation left the Pacific Northwest's mountains largely bare of snow and reduced stream flows to a trickle. Water managers across the region are calling this the worst drought since 1977, and perhaps the worst ever if spring and summer rains don't arrive in the region's agricultural country.

Farmers face difficult decisions about crops.

"It's disheartening," Carpenter said. "How do you determine what you're going to do? You've got to make a lot of decisions and some of them are going to come on faith."

In Idaho, parts of which are facing a seventh straight year of drought, farmers planted fewer potatoes and sugar beets, the state's two largest cash crops, said John Thompson, spokesman for the Idaho Farm Bureau.

In Oregon and Washington, farmers cut back significantly on planting several crops, including wheat and hay. The planting decisions likely will lead to a drop in farm income this year, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

The drought spells particularly bad news for some of the region's permanent crops, such as apples, cherries and pears, because orchards take years to grow enough to produce quality fruit, and a severe drought can kill trees.

"It's not just the potential of losing their crop for this year, but there's the potential for losing their crops for a decade," said Dean Boyer, spokesman for the Washington State Farm Bureau.

Parts of Washington have begun rationing water after the governor declared a statewide drought emergency March 10.

In Washington's Yakima Valley, home to many orchards, some irrigators with junior rights learned they will likely receive only one-third of their average supply of water.

"You're just hoping you get enough water to keep the trees alive," said Carpenter, who will receive little to no water in April because his irrigation district shut off the spigot to conserve water for later in the growing season.

Washington state officials received dozens of requests from irrigators in the Yakima River basin to drill new emergency drought wells or reactivate old ones. The department has approved some requests.

But a drought well can cost thousands of dollars to drill, if a farmer can find an available driller. Farmers also face additional expenses for diesel fuel to pump water out of wells or ponds if irrigation canals are shut off and for higher charges from the irrigation district to purchase water from other districts.

The region's reliance on cheap hydropower comes back to bite farmers during a severe drought, said Katie Fast, spokeswoman for the Oregon Farm Bureau.

"We're almost double hit by this. We're hit by the lack of water for crops, but we're hit by higher electricity rates just like other businesses and residences," Fast said.

Farmers also use water to spray trees on cool spring nights to protect them from frost damage. Water releases heat while freezing, thereby warming the orchard.

Farmers in Carpenter's irrigation district are seeing the effects of having no water available in April, traditionally the worst month for frost damage. Growers estimated frost damage at 15 percent of crops this month.

Farm groups contend farmers in the Yakima Valley region could see losses of up to $1 billion. But losses to the industry due to drought can be difficult to determine, in part because a reduced supply often drives up prices.

That could especially be true for some crops in the Pacific Northwest, said Eric Schuck, an assistant professor of agricultural and resource economics at Colorado State University who studied the impacts of drought on that state's industry in 2002.

"For tree fruits and hops, where Washington, Oregon and Idaho are leaders in supply, you should anticipate a price effect," Schuck said. "But if it's a bulk product where the price is set nationally, you are toast."

During the last drought in Washington in 2001, Carpenter used tanker trucks to haul water to keep some plants alive on his 1,000 acres of apples, cherries, pears, apricots, wine grapes and hops. It is too soon to tell whether that strategy will work this year.

"We're trying to farm normally in a very un-normal situation," Carpenter said. "It's a recipe for disaster this year."