California’s Deadly Heat Wave Takes Toll on South Asian Farmers

MARYSVILLE, Calif. – First it was the long wet spring that took its toll on Sarbjit Johl’s peaches. Then the 10 straight days of triple digit temperatures last week, California’s deadliest hot spell in five decades, cooked the fruit on the trees.

“This has been the most brutal year I’ve ever seen,” lamented Johl, who’s been farming since 1976 and co-owns Johl Brothers Farms in Marysville. “We are probably going to see the lowest yield since 1983. There was bad weather then, something like what we’ve had this year.”

Johl’s lament finds an echo among Central Valley farmers in Butte, Sutter and Yuba counties, who say Nature’s one-two punch will cut deep into their profits this year. The Central Valley produces more than half of the state’s peaches. Nearly 75 percent of the peach farms here are owned by people of Indian descent.

In 1983, California’s peach farmers produced 339,000 tons of the fruit. Three years earlier, good weather helped the state to produce 744,000 tons, but has never been able to replicate that abundance since, Johl said. Last year’s yield was 481,000 tons.

Excessive rains keep the crops smaller than usual because the blooms set late. And some of the blooms rot on the trees. That is what happened this year before the unusually hot weather set in.

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