The allocation letter from Westlands Water District arrives with percentages that determine everything:
| Water Year | Allocation | Cost per Acre-Foot |
|---|---|---|
| 2025-26 | 55% | $146.98 |
| 2022 | 0% | N/A |
For Jim Anderson, a fifth-generation Westlands farmer who grows garlic, wheat, almonds, and pistachios, these numbers determine which fields get irrigated and which go fallow, which crops pencil out and which don't, whether he can service his debt or watch his operation collapse.
Anderson adjusts "as needed based on water availability." Every field requires a separate decision. Soil quality, crop value, irrigation efficiency, debt service requirements. The variables multiply until you're running spreadsheets trying to figure out which land can survive on reduced water and which has to sit empty. You calculate, recalculate, calculate again.
In 2022, Westlands received zero allocation. That year cost the San Joaquin Valley $1.2 billion and 7,500 jobs.
Westlands serves roughly 614,000 acres in Fresno and Kings counties, making it the largest agricultural water district in the United States. Farmers who'd invested millions in permanent crops watched almond and pistachio trees die because there was no water to buy at any price.
Anderson's diversification across garlic, wheat, almonds, and pistachios is itself a hedge against uncertainty. Different crops with different water requirements, different market prices, different risk profiles. Diversification only works if you have some water. At zero allocation, you're choosing which investments to abandon.
The long-term projections are worse than the immediate crisis. California's Sustainable Groundwater Management Act requires bringing groundwater use into balance with recharge by 2040. By that deadline, average annual water supplies in the San Joaquin Valley could decline by 20 percent.
SGMA 2040 Scenarios:
| Scenario | Fallowed Acres | Jobs Lost | Economic Decline |
|---|---|---|---|
| Worst Case | 900,000 | 50,000 | 2.3% |
| Best Case | 500,000 | — | — |
Even the best-case scenario requires fallowing at least 500,000 acres. Anderson is making decisions now about permanent crops that won't reach full production for five to seven years, betting on water allocations nobody can predict and regulatory requirements still being written.
Which fields have the best soil? Which crops command the highest prices? Which investments can you defer? How much debt can you carry if revenue drops 30 percent? What happens if you get two consecutive zero-allocation years? Field by field, crop by crop, the calculations determine whether a fifth-generation operation survives to see a sixth.
Groundwater levels in some San Joaquin Valley districts have dropped more than 10 feet per year over the past decade. Wells that used to hit water at 200 feet now need to go 400 feet. The electricity costs alone for pumping from that depth can exceed crop value. And SGMA regulations will eventually restrict groundwater pumping to sustainable levels, eliminating the buffer that let farmers survive surface water shortages.
The 2020-22 drought saw growers fallow several hundred thousand acres of Central Valley cropland, mainly rice and cotton. Those were annual crops that could be replanted when water returned. The coming fallowing will include permanent crops. Almond and pistachio orchards that took years to establish and millions to develop will be ripped out because there's no water to sustain them.
Do you spend $100,000 on drip irrigation systems that might let you farm with less water, or save that capital for the year you get zero allocation and need it to survive? Do you plant permanent crops that generate higher revenue per acre but require consistent water, or stick with annual crops that let you adjust each season?
Jeff Fortune, who began farming in Westlands in 1978 and now serves as board president, stated in 2025:
"Farmers in Westlands cautiously recognize that the next drought is only a matter of time."
Anderson runs the numbers again. Field by field, crop by crop, calculating which bets might pay off and which will definitely fail. You make the best guess you can with the information you have. You plant or you don't plant. You invest or you conserve. You hold the orchard or you rip it out.
And then you wait to see if you guessed right. By the time you know for certain, it's too late to change the decision. The trees are already in the ground or already gone. The water comes or it doesn't. The allocation letter arrives next year with a new percentage and you start calculating all over again, knowing that eventually the math stops working and the fifth generation becomes the last generation.