Recent flooding in California has devastated more than 300 strawberry farmers, shippers and processors. The Pajaro and Salinas Rivers have swelled and suffocated strawberry farms just weeks before an optimistic harvest.
The California Strawberry Commission President Rick Tomlinson says preliminary estimates peg the damage at hundreds of millions of dollars and countless losses for people displaced near Pajaro. Currently, the Pajaro River levee breach is being prepared to stop the river from flowing into the community. Tomlinson says the coming weeks will bring massive cleanup.
When farmers finish cleanup, it will be time to start preparing fields to start over. California’s 400-family strawberry operations create 70,000 jobs in the Golden State and invest 97 cents every dollar back into the community.
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