Column: California farmers bought Trump election pitch -- at what cost

A sign on an old trailer in a rural area says, "Vote to Make America Great Again"

By George SkeltonCapitol Journal Columnist

Feb. 10, 2025 3 AM PT

Share via
- Email
- Facebook
- X
- LinkedIn
- Threads
- Reddit
- WhatsApp

SACRAMENTO — Gonzo journalist Hunter S. Thompson put it well: “Buy the ticket, take the ride.”

That was more than half a century ago in his bestselling book “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.” But his words ring true today for California’s farmers, especially those in the Central Valley, who bought President Trump’s election pitch. And now they’re on a ride to who knows where.

The only crop the legendary Thompson — ”national affairs editor” of Rolling Stone magazine — really cared about, I suspect, was weed. But if he were still among us, it would be fun to read his take on Trump’s strong support among California agriculture interests and how he’s treating them in return.

In November, Trump carried 15 Central Valley farm belt counties — nine by landslides — over Democrat Kamala Harris. That was even more valley support than he received in 2020, when he won in 10 counties.

Now he’s promising to send them more water to grow crops. But he’s frightening — potentially scaring off and even deporting — the very farm laborers needed to harvest those crops.

Simultaneously, he has started a trade war that could reduce profits for farmers who export their crops while significantly increasing consumer costs for food.
And although Trump could increase the supply of irrigation water for the San Joaquin Valley through the federal Central Valley Project, that would probably trigger a reduction in state water for Southern California and its farmers.

That’s because the president would need to gut the federal Endangered Species Act to pump more water south from the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta. If courts allowed that — and they didn’t in his first administration — it would lower protection for declining salmon and other fish.

But California has its own endangered species act. And the state would probably replace the lost federal water with more of its own, pumping less from the Delta for Southern California and the Central Coast.
We’ve already seen how much Trump knows about California’s water system and farmers’ needs. He seems totally ignorant on the subject.

One recent example was when he foolishly ordered the Army Corps of Engineers to dump water from two small dams in the Tulare Basin and essentially wasted it. Some water will soak into the ground and help replenish depleted aquifers. And that’s good. But winter is when farmers like to bank water in reservoirs to draw out during the dry summer growing season. Water isn’t needed now. No one is irrigating.

In fact, farmers are trying to protect against flooding — and the unexpected release of reservoir water rattled nerves as a storm approached.

But Trump saw it as a wonderful moment for a photo op. He ran a picture of a swirling river on his X page, captioned: “Photo of beautiful water flow that I just opened in California. Today, 1.6 billion gallons…. Everybody should be happy about this long fought victory! I only wish they listened to me six years ago — there would have been no [L.A.] fire!”

Hallucination.

Farmers can’t know yet how far Trump will go in deporting immigrants living in the country illegally and whether he’ll raid their fields and orchards. At least half of California’s farmworkers are undocumented. Trump says he’s targeting only undocumented immigrants who have committed serious crimes. OK, that seems reasonable. But we know how that goes: Law-abiding people get snagged too. Assemblywoman Esmeralda Soria (D-Fresno) has a special perspective. Both her parents migrated from Mexico in the 1970s to work in the California fields. They were undocumented.

“Dad was caught several times and deported. And he came back,” she told me.

It’s a familiar story. Even farmworkers here legally often were rounded up — just because of their skin color — and held for hours before being released, she recalls. So, many farmworkers now are scared to report to work, Soria says she’s hearing. And it’s the citrus harvest season. Orange pickers are badly needed. “Without workers our food supply will collapse,” she asserted last week during an Assembly debate before passage of legislation appropriating $25 million to fund legal services for immigrants. “California agriculture will face a depression not like anything you’ve seen in decades.”

The California Farm Bureau Federation recently reported in a news release that it had “not heard of any widespread workforce disruption” because of feared raids by federal agents. But it added: “We need [immigration] policies that offer real solutions … that reflect the reality of farming — not blanket enforcement measures that put the entire agriculture system at risk.”

If Trump deports undocumented farmworkers, says UCLA economics professor Jerry Nickelsburg, farmers will “have to pay more — and maybe a lot more — to get their crops picked. And that will lead to higher food prices.”

As for a potentially aggressive trade war spurred by Trump targeting China, Mexico and Canada, “tariffs are a bad deal. And for California agriculture, they’re really bad news,” says Daniel Sumner, a UC Davis professor of agriculture economics.

For example, he says, “the U.S. buys lots of fruits and vegetables from Mexico. We’d lose out and pay more.” Mexico would probably retaliate by placing a tariff on California’s dried milk products, Sumner adds. “Mexico is our biggest buyer of milk.” There’d be less profit for California dairies.

Hunter S. Thompson wrote something else that seems relevant now.

After President Nixon shellacked Democrat George McGovern in the 1972 presidential election, Thompson opined: “McGovern made some stupid mistakes, but in context they seem almost frivolous compared to the things Richard Nixon does every day of his life on purpose…. Jesus! Where will it end?”

It ended with the Watergate scandal and Nixon’s resignation.
Farmers bought the Trump ticket and are stuck with the ride wherever it ends. Let’s hope it’s smoother than it looks — for their sake and California’s.