California's Poor Water Policy is Threatening Agriculture | Sohan Samran

For Californians that criticize the farming, a lot of people say, oh, we shouldn't make this food here, it takes too much water. That's a misconception. The little fish that we're trying to save out of Delta takes a lot more water than almonds. You'd be surprised how much money we bring back to our economy from other parts of the world. In terms of the state leaders, do you think they don't really have a lot of value for it? They want to downsize our agriculture footprint. You have to spend a million, $2 million to get the permit. So what it does is it pushes the small family farmers Cut the red tape, make it simpler. My guest today is Sohan Samra. He's a farmer in Madera County. Today he's gonna discuss the challenges the farmers are facing in California and why he had to follow some of his land. Also, he's gonna share with us how he was able to build a canal in his property to store some of the stormwater in the underground basin without any help from any government entity. And we have no experience building it. It was the first time we just learned on the job. Without water, there is no farming. And those are the projects that the government, the state and the federal, small communities like ours. I'm Siyamak Korami. Welcome to California Insider. So Han, it's great to have you. Thank you. Thanks for having me here. We want to talk to you about what's going on with the farmers in California. And actually, we had a lot of water this year. This was a really good year for you guys, right? Yes, we were very, very blessed. After coming out of three years of three, four years of drought, we were very blessed. We really needed it. Otherwise, we'd be in a lot more trouble. And there's a lot of water that is available now. But you guys call them flood water. Can you explain to us what's going on with the water? Flood water is water that is extra water beyond the storage capacity. You don't have a storage capacity for it, and you don't have a use for it. It's extra water that when the snow melts faster than the water being consumed. So that is what you consider as flood water. That's flood water. And where does this set? Even the rivers can't handle it, because rivers only have so much capacity. And that water, there's a bypass to leave the pressure off the river. And it's dumped into a bypass. So this flood water comes from the snows, the mountains. Either it goes through the river, or it goes through bypasses. And it goes to the consumers, too. It goes to the metropolitan, the agriculture. And a lot of it is stored in the lakes for the future usage. But then beyond that, if the snow is melting faster than its need of the water, then it has to go into the ocean. Do you think it would be flood communities? Do you think a big portion of this water, the extra water, is going to go into the ocean? We tried to grab some of that water and apply it to our farms and recharge our groundwater with it. And we also tried to irrigate our farms with it. Instead of pumping it out of the ground, we would use some of that flood water to irrigate and do some recharging. Some people were frustrated that the water went to the ocean, flew through the ocean. And we lost a lot of the storm water. There was another wave of water that's coming from the flood. Can you tell us what was all this? How did all this work when the rain came? You were watching what was happening. We don't have enough storage. That's number one. We just don't have enough storage. Last time there was water storage built, it was 50, 60 years ago. We have not. And our demand for California for water has doubled. The population has doubled in the last 50 years or so. But it's just the same amount of water going to many different places. So yeah, we do not have enough storage. And those are the projects that the government built, the state and the federal, not small communities like ours. We can only do what we can do. And you guys, there was a point you decided to do something about this. Can you tell us about that? Yes, we built our own canal system to convey the water when there's extra flood water. The water that's going on the bypass is going to flood the communities down the stream. And we're just trying to help that situation and take that much of that water out of that bypass, the flood water, and put it back on our ground for a recharge purpose. We built like 4 and 1 half to 5 miles worth of canals. Wow. Yes. And we did it on our own, no help from anybody. We just did it. And you did it this year? Yes, yes, we did. When we saw that big bypass flowing with a lot of that extra water, I mean, I'm a farmer. And we just like to, we want to grab it as much as we can. Because it's such a precious. Yes, precious. I mean, coming out of three years of drought, every drop of water is very valuable. And it just excites us. We're excited to see it, yeah. So you, and then you've been- Excited to see it and sad to see it's going to waste. Sad to see it going to waste. So we want to take advantage of the situation. It's an investment for the future. Anytime there's flood water flowing in the future, we are right there. We can start grabbing that water as soon as possible. And the goal for it, to grab that water and put it on the ground. And recharge it. Recharge the ground water. Recharge the ground water, yes. Did you get any feedback from anybody in the government? Did they like your project, or did they not? We had a couple of local representatives have looked at it. And sure, they like it, but they can't build it themselves for anybody. I mean, they're not set up yet for it. And you were able to build this in two months, right? Yes, two months. And we have no experience building it. It was the first time we just learned on the job. How did you end up doing this? What caused you to, was there a moment you kind of decided to do this and what was- Well, we saw all that water going through the bypass. It was just so much water. I've never seen that kind of water before. And as a farmer, just coming out of drought for the last three years, water is very precious. If it's not hurting anybody, that water, well, let's grab it. And there's many other farmers who did the same, which is good because it charges our groundwater. The less we pump out of the ground, the better it is for our water table. So we're trying to comply with the SGMA. SGMA is the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act, which was passed in 2015 by our state government, that by 2040, our water table cannot drop. It needs to stay where it's at by 2040. So we've got 17 years left. So you're trying to recharge it? We are trying to comply with that regulation by 2040, get it set up and functional and operational and prove it to the state that this is what we have done. If we were to not do anything about the water issue, what will happen to the farming community in California? Without water, there is no farming community. Water is the most precious resource we have. So, yeah, for the long-term viability of our farms, we need a supply of water. And some of the things statewide, it's not just our community, it's statewide. We need to make more infrastructure systems. The state and federal governments has to be involved in this. Only they can do it. There's some things we cannot do. We don't have the rights, we don't have the resources. But for the health of the whole entire state, we need to capture more of this water and store. Now, are you worried about the future of farming? Of course, of course. That's our livelihood. We want to continue to produce safe, affordable food for our country. We need water for that. And we do our part. We're very efficient. We don't over irrigate. We don't overuse the water. We have a lot of sensors in the ground, moisture sensors that tells us. There's readings that we take and we apply just enough to keep the tree healthy. We don't over irrigate and it's done through the drip system and it's measured to the dot. You know what I mean? It's not like one side of the farm gets more water than the other. No, it's all uniformly, equally applied to every individual tree. And we do our part. Every time there's a surface water of rainwater, surface water available, we apply it. We minimize the pumping of the groundwater. We use as least amount as possible because we want to be able to preserve that water for later. This episode is sponsored by Midas Gold Group. Saudi Arabia has said they're open to accepting currencies for oil other than the dollar. Kissinger set up a petro-business agreement with the Saudis in the 1970s, enshrining the US dollar as the world's reserve currency. This could be shattered. The grave consequences would be felt by every American. 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What are your thoughts on that? That's a misconception. I mean, it doesn't take that much water. There's other crops. The little fish we're trying to save out of Delta takes a lot more water than almonds. So no, we produce almonds, and we produce feed for the outer side of the hole is used for animal feed. So it's not all just for that one little nut. We produce food for the animals as well, the shell outside of it. So we are not considering the rest of the shell when we're doing the calculation. That is the food for livestock animals. Feed, yes. My other business is exporting almonds. We pack our own almonds, and we pack them, process them, and ship them. We ship them all over the world. You'd be surprised how much money we bring back. Because we export, you'd be surprised how much money we bring back to our economy from other parts of the world, which is also good for our economy as well. We generate revenue for our government, for our economy, for our communities. So we bring money from other parts of the world back into the economy. So do you think that people that criticize the farming, do you think that there's a lot of people that say, oh, we shouldn't make this food here? Do you think they kind of not understand what is the process of? You've seen during the COVID, we had a supply issue of anything. You go to stores, they're empty shelves. You're out of supplies. Do you want to do that with your food? Yeah, let other countries produce it for you. But we can produce very safe and very affordable food here than the rest of the world. So without food, you don't live. I mean, you can live without t-shirts, but other shoes for one day. But I mean, the food, we have to have a secure food here. I had this question. Why is the state not doing this? You kind of were able to do it yourself in two months. I can't say to the U.S. government. They know a lot of red tape, and there's always someone objects their plan, and then they have to go through the court system. And it's a really complicated process for state, federal, but they can do it. Sure. Did other farmers do this too, some other farmers? I have not seen anybody make a canal system, but I've seen a lot of farmers also were able to use that water, yes. And so did it- I've seen a lot more recharging this year than ever in the past year. Did it cost you a lot to build this canal? It costed, but it's something that was needed to be done. We had to- If we want to stay in farming for the future, this is an investment we had to make. And what I was shocked by a little bit is that you guys are going to put this water into the ground, and then you probably have to pay for it when you take it out, right? Yeah, you know what? That's a very interesting question. Nobody knows yet. Our county government does not have a policy made up yet. We just got ahead of their plan. The county government doesn't have a plan. They're going to charge us or what they're going to allow us, have free credits on. We don't know yet. And the state doesn't know yet either. There's no plan or policy yet. So essentially- From what I understand. So essentially, and regularly, you guys have to pay when you take groundwater, right? Is that- As of right now, our Madera County is, if you go over 28 inches of water, you pump more than 28 inches of water, yes, you'd have to pay penalty pump, any water additional to that. It's $100 acre foot in 2023, $200 per acre foot in 2024, and it goes up to $500 maximum per acre foot. Have you ever paid these penalties or- It just started this year. So we will have to see how much water we end up using for this crop year. If we use more than our allocation, the 28 inches per acre foot, then we would have to pay, yes. And how has it been during the previous years? Is this enough water? Do you guys have enough water or has it been costly? There's never enough water. I mean, when there's a dry year, your allocation is a lot less. It depends on the amount of water that's available. So, I mean, we have one farm in the state water project. We 100% depend on the surface water, which is brought from up north, Oroville Dam, it's part of the state project. And last year, we didn't have any allocation. Only 5% of water was allocated to it. So we had to abandon it. Even though it had, what about the trees? It died. They died. We had to abandon them. It's a big investment. And then what do you do with it later? Can you do it again? You can still farm. Yeah. Then the year after- This year we have plenty of water, but the trees are dead. It's one year too late. Does it take a lot to bring those trees back? They're dead. We have to grind them up. And start again. Start all over. And is this normal in California farming community? Is this happening where people are abandoning their trees? We've seen a lot more in last year. Last year and this year, yes. What about the farmers? What do they think of what's going on? Are they kind of giving up? Or do they want to continue farming? Or is it like odds are against them? You know, I mean, you can't give up because you made lifelong investments in these farms. You can't just walk away from it. You just keep fighting. So in terms of the state leaders, you know, you guys talk to the representatives and state leaders, right, in your community. Yes. From what I gather, the job you guys did is something that the county or the state should have probably helped or done. Yes, they should have, but it's not possible. And when you talk to them, what are their thoughts on all of this? They're doing a great job. It's a good job, you know, but that's it. Do you think they're giving up in the farming community or farmers, or do you think they don't really have a lot of value for it because the economical value to the state is not as much as other industries? That's something we have to ask them. But the policies that our government makes, sure, it seems like that they might have given up or they want to downsize our agriculture footprint. What are some of those policies that you feel like they're affecting you guys a lot and doesn't make sense to you or other farmers? There's so many of them, especially almonds. We have almonds and we export almonds all over the world. So anything happens anywhere affects us because if there's a war somewhere, well, that affects us directly. If there's a recession anywhere in the world, it affects us. Last few years, the ports, we couldn't get enough ships to move our product and we had a lot of problems with the congestion at the ports. That affects us as well. So too much rain affects us, not enough rain affects us. We get affected a lot, many, many. And then at the same time, you have certain rules and regulations that are- Yes, well, I believe they pass like 2,000 laws every year. They passed like 997 laws last year. Okay, there you go. But they proposed 3,000 years. 3,000, yeah. So that's their job, make laws. And you have seen- Not all laws are favorable. It's always just a little bit every time, give us more regulations every year, just a little bit more, a little bit more just adds up. And then eventually it makes it very difficult on you guys. The cost of doing business just goes, increases and increases just little by little bit every year. So what it does is it pushes the small family farmers out of business. They don't have a staff to deal with these, complying with these new regulations. So if you've got a small family farm and you work on your farm, and it makes it harder and harder. Why are so many people leaving California? It wasn't long ago, people from everywhere wanted to move to the Golden State to enjoy a better life. Sadly, the standard of living has been dropping in the past decade. Are you like me and wonder why this is happening? I'm Siamak Khorami, host of California Insider. In our film, Leaving California, the Untold Story, I take you an intimate journey of love, loss, tragedy, and hope as residents face the prospect of leaving their beloved state. Everyday people like you tell their stories about why they have to move out of the state, even though they don't want to. Experts and policy makers also give insights about what's happening behind the scenes. Together, we get to the root cause of this exodus. Go to leavingcalifornia.com to view the first 15 minutes of the film for free. By watching Leaving California, you can be part of the solution. Again, go to leavingcalifornia.com. Was it like this when you were growing up? You came here from India with your family and your guys. Yes, yes. Can you tell us your story? Well, we migrated here in 77, 1977, and the last rules were a lot more lenient days, especially the labor laws. We were able to go work on the farm as a young boy, and especially in piecework. Piecework is the amount of work you do, that's how much you get paid. It's not by the hour. If you can do 100 trees per project, then you get paid for that. So there are a lot of jobs that are really easy. Even the young kid can do it, but they're time consuming. So I would go help my parents on the weekends and do some of those jobs that were not physically hard, but they're time consuming. So it kept me out of trouble and make me want to go back to school every day and study. You were also able to earn some money for yourself too as a young kid, right? Yeah, you helped, of course. I mean, I was able to contribute to the family earnings, yes, because I was on the weekends, or on the summer breaks and Christmas break, or every time there was a holiday, we're not at work, farm and helping with the family. And yeah, it added to the family earnings, which we needed. And how was it working with the family? Did it help you guys get closer or was it? Yes, even my cousins would be working with us alongside, you know, with my uncles and stuff. So yeah, we would all work as a young, you know, cousins and stuff too, helping the family out. Yes, we even got to closer with my cousins that way. We would race each other, you know, see who could do more, faster. So it was fun times, you know. And how is it now? There's a lot, I think it's a lot harder, right, for kids to work. Yes, so now when it's piecework, you have to guarantee the employee makes minimum wage. So if you have a child that comes and helps their family, they might wanna bring them so they can help them out. I would have to guarantee them minimum wage. And sometimes they can't make minimum wage. They cannot do as much work as an adult, right? Adult, because they're just there to play. They play around and they don't take work that serious when you're young, at a young age. The parents just bring them along, keep them out of the house. They don't have to pay the babysitter, you know, and the kids play on the computer, games. Gets them out of the house, keeps them out of trouble. They don't do enough job. I have to guarantee them minimum wage and my cost of farming goes up and, you know, which I have to watch my numbers, my cost, you know. So they cannot do as much as an adult, but you're mandated by the state to pay for it. I wasn't mandated when I was younger. So here's so much work. You do as much as you can, fast as you can. And we did it then. Some of the laws that you're mentioning, Sohan, they're actually trying to help the workers. They just had this law that will ask for overtime. So that farmers- You know, yes, that is correct. It is to create a better, I guess, environment, but it also hurts them. So if you do the numbers, a few years ago, they were allowed to work 60 hours a week. Now it's 40 hours. So if you pay them $10 per hour on 60 hours, it's $600. Now it's $400. So the farm worker makes less than what it did before because they're allowed to work less hours. So people won't pay the overtime. Well, you know, you still gotta run like a business. Your farm is, I understand, as a family farm, it's a lifestyle as well, but still it's a business. You still gotta make good business decisions and you hire extra workers so you don't have to have overtime. Essentially, we're trying to help people by passing laws, giving more money for overtime, but then at the same time, those people are not gonna get as much hours. So they're gonna lose the extra hours they were getting. And there's a reason that this industry has 60 hours because during the harvest, you need the people more. Can you explain to us why was it like this before? Agriculture, there's a lot of seasonal, in a short time, you have to put in a lot of hours to go harvest your crops, or you gotta go plant your crops. So there is a time that in the short window, you have to get a lot done. So therefore you cannot employ a lot of employees all year long. You don't need all year, it's seasonal. So whatever amount of time you have, you have to go put in a lot of hours and then you slow down. So that's why in agriculture, there was 60 hours per week, because it's strictly because of the seasonal demand. And during the winter time or other times, you have nothing to do, but then you do. Slower, you know, yeah. Slower. You employ less. You try to keep, what you do is, you hire whatever you need, your staff, and you try to keep them the same number of employees all year long. And when the harvest comes, well, the small, short window, you just gotta put in extra hours. People have to work more. Yeah, and with this, what it will cause, it's like those people are not gonna get the extra hours because the overtime cost is gonna be higher. So then we kind of have to go hire other people. Yes, or go mechanize. Mechanize it, automate it. So we are essentially, unfortunately- Or plant crops that doesn't require much labor. So essentially, we're kind of making it harder for the workers in the process of trying to help them from what it sounds like. Yes, seems like they're making less now than what they did. Your family, you guys came from India and you built this farm. Can you tell us how you guys did it? I don't know, a lot of hard work and sacrifices. And, you know, every day get up and just go to work. Did you guys come and buy some land and, or you started working on the farms? Your parents did? So when my parents came, they don't have any college degrees. They were very unskilled and uneducated. So they started working on the farms. That's where you start. And that's your first step of your long-term career. As working on the farm, your dream is, oh, I wish we own our own 20-acre worth of farm. So it was a goal and a dream from the day one, to at least have our own 20-acre farm and home on it. So yes, so that's how it started. So they started buying a little bit and a little bit. Yes, yes, yes. And now it's 4,000 acres, is that? I don't know, it changes every day. Yes, we're always buying or selling or in the process, yes. When you were going through the drought, like in the- Yes, last three years. Did you feel like you could lose your farm? Like you lose everything? Oh, absolutely, yes. We did lose part of my farm on one of the farms. We just didn't have enough water on many other farms in the area as well. In the current county where they 100% depend on the state water project and federal water. A lot of family farms were shut down, yes. Have you ever thought about giving up and doing something else? Like kind of like- You know, we're always open-minded, yes. We always think about other options, but this is all we know. You know, we're really invested in this. My two sons, they went to colleges and they got really good education. They came back to our community and they're working on the family farm to keep it going. You know, we'll keep farming until can. We won't stop. We want to continue to do what we think is the best for our community. And if you had any advice for government officials in California, the leaders, do you have any thoughts for them? Any advice for them? Stay out of our way. Let us do our job. And if the governor came to you tomorrow and said, hey, Sohan, you've done a good job with this, what you've been doing with this water project, what should we do for the farming community? Or you're in charge to help the farming community. What would you do? Give us permits. That flood water we're talking about, you can't just go grab it. You have to have permits. And permits are like a year out and you have to spend a million, $2 million to get the permit. Cut the red tape, make it simpler. And this year, because the governor signed the executive order, the flood water that anybody can grab it because there's so much, otherwise it's going to flood communities down the stream. We were allowed to do it. But like in the future, if I want to grab, take that water out of the bypass, you have to have permits. Even though you built the infrastructure, you still have- We built it on our property. We did not build it on the bypass. Bypass does not belong to us, all the farmers. So there's permits and there's gates we got put in. They're worth millions of dollars. And a year's worth of weight. Yeah, make those things simpler, simplify it. And for Californians that are watching our show that care about California and California's future, do you have any thoughts or any recommendations or any thoughts? You know, we, California as a whole, is struggling from a lack of water. It's a statewide issue. It's not just my issue or my communities or farming. It's a statewide issue. We need to have more storage. And so the water is good for our environment. It's good for fishing. It's good for our cities. Clean, good water that they get to have. And it's good for agriculture. It's good for the whole state of California. Now, do you have any other thoughts for our audience? You know, we work really hard to produce good, safe food, clean food, and affordable food for everyone. So support us to do more storages and build more storages for water, above ground storages. Sohan Samran, California farmer, it was great to have you on California Insider. Thanks for having us. Happy to be here. If you like the show and our content, you should go to InsiderCA.com and sign up to our newsletter because we never know what can happen with social media and other platforms in terms of distributing our content. If you'd like to come on the show and be an insider, you can reach out to us at cainsider at epochtimesca.com. Again, it's cainsider at epochtimesca.com. We would love to have you on the show to tell us what's going on in your field in California. Thank you for watching.