Daniel A. Sumner

from ARE Update Vol. 18, No. 5, May/Jun, 2015 Special Issue: The Economics of the Drought for California Food and Agriculture

View Article PDF: California's Severe Drought Has Only Marginal Impacts on Food Prices

Abstract

Flexibility and resourcefulness by California farmers have minimized drought-induced supply reductions for tree, vine and vegetable crops, for which California has large market shares and for which retail prices would be sensitive to California disruptions. Water is being shifted away from field crops that enter the food supply indirectly and for which California is not a dominant producer. These facts mean that even a severe drought is having only slight impacts on supplies to consumers and thus only slight impacts on consumer food prices. Of course, the longer the drought lasts, the larger the impacts.

Keywords

2015 drought, retail price impacts, friut and vegetable prices

Citation

Daniel A. Sumner. 2015. "California's Severe Drought Has Only Marginal Impacts on Food Prices." ARE Update 18(5): 12-15. University of California Giannini Foundation of Agricultural Economics.
https://giannini.ucop.edu/filer/file/1453327773/16970/