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Worsening Drought Crisis in California

Floor Speech

Date: May 19, 2021
Location: Washington, DC
Issues: National Security Agriculture and Food

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Mr. VALADAO. Madam Speaker, I rise today to call attention to the worsening drought crisis in California, which has become so devastating that farmers are abandoning their crops in the fields.

This was an asparagus field in Firebaugh, a small, rural town in my district. Recently, the farmer made the difficult decision to abandon the crop in that field to preserve water for his melon crops instead. You can clearly see the destruction this drought has wreaked on his farmland.

Promised water will now not be delivered. Farmers all over California are unable to bring their crops to harvest, crops that would have fed families across the United States.

With legislation like my bill, the RENEW WIIN Act, those farmers might have been able to save their fields rather than be forced to waste and destroy half-grown produce our Nation relies on California to grow.

If the House majority continues to refuse to take up legislation to address the drought, farmers won't have to choose between asparagus or melons, because they won't have the water to grow any food at all.

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