California’s Central Valley was once known as America’s food basket providing vast supplies of fruit, vegetables and meat, but as these recent photographs show the devastating effects of the state’s worst drought in decades has played havoc on the region leaving much of it unfit for farming.
And it’s not just farms in the region, as luxury homes and golf clubs have also been left with scorched earth where once there had been lush grass.
The most populous U.S. state is in its third year of what officials are calling a catastrophic drought, leading farmers to leave fallow nearly a half-million acres of land and leaving some small communities at risk of running out of drinking water.
Thousands of workers facing losing their jobs and farmers in the state are facing losses of $1.7 billion, according to recent economic study of what may be the state’s driest year on record.
(Read the rest of the story here…)