We measure farmland in sections. A section is a square mile, which is 640ac. You know the term "back 40"? Well that's the quarter of a quarter section. The one out back.Oh. I see. I think. So could you just plant, say, 10 acre of whatever you want?
When I say I have access to the 500K acres, I mean, I know most of the farmers, and they let us get what we want. Some take boxes of produce, I only take what we use in a couple days, sometimes I get a box or two to give to friends that come down from the city.If you owned that 10 acres, or leased it you could, you couldn't just do it anywhere you want.Some fields will plant "mix vegetables", basically 5 acres cabbage, 12 acres Iceberg lettuce, 15 acres romaine, etc, the most common field is 70 acres, and 140 acres. We identify them by the Canal name, and Delivery number, Ex; Ash 48, or Plum 7, etc.The organic growers mostly plant small blocks of "mix vegetables". Non organic, will plant a 70, or 140, (what ever the acres of the field is) of lettuce, broccoli, carrots, alfalfa, wheat, what ever they want to grow.Grimmway, the largest carrot grower here, will plant roughly 12,000 acres of carrots each year, all around the Valley. Where ever they can get the ground.We have the water, Farming is the largest industry here, basically we grow the winter vegetables for the nation. California is allocated 3.9 million acre feet of water from the Colorado River annually. Of that 3.9 MAF, we get 3.1 MAF, we use about 2.8MAF, and the remainder is set for transfer to Metropolitan Water District, etc, through the Quantification Settlement Agreement (QSA), the largest farm to city water transfer in US history. Because, you know, the city slickers food grows at Ralphs of Safeway.
