Editing Central Valley (California) (section)

==Economy==
Agriculture is the primary industry in most of the Central Valley. A notable exception is the Sacramento area, which hosts a large and stable workforce of government employees. Despite state hiring cutbacks and the closure of several military bases, Sacramento's economy has continued to expand and diversify and now more closely resembles that of the San Francisco Bay Area. Primary sources of population growth are Bay Area migrants seeking lower housing costs, augmented by immigration from Asia, Central America, Mexico, Ukraine, and the rest of the former Soviet Union.<ref name=overview/> The Central Valley's high rates of [[poverty]], [[asthma]], and [[air pollution]], have impeded the Valley from transforming its economy into relevance beyond its role as an agricultural breadbasket.<ref name=CentralValleyEconomicDesolation/>

===Agriculture===
[[File:Crop fields in the United States.webp|thumb|Crop fields in the United States]]
The Central Valley is one of the world's most productive agricultural regions.{{r|FB 2019-08-30}}<ref name=every/> More than 230 crops are grown there.<ref name=every/> On less than 1 percent of the total farmland in the United States, the Central Valley produces 8 percent of the nation's agricultural output by value: US$43.5 billion in 2013.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.cdfa.ca.gov/statistics/pdfs/2013/finaldraft2012-2013.pdf |title=Archived copy |access-date=2016-03-29 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160619060334/https://www.cdfa.ca.gov/Statistics/PDFs/2013/FinalDraft2012-2013.pdf |archive-date=June 19, 2016 }}</ref> California's farms and ranches earned almost $50&nbsp;billion in 2018.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.cdfa.ca.gov/statistics/#|title=CDFA - Statistics|website=www.ca.ca.gov}}</ref> The valley's productivity relies on irrigation from surface water and [[Overdrafting|badly depleted underground aquifers]].<ref>{{Cite web|last=Wiltermuth|first=Joy|date=November 2, 2021|title=What California's fading cotton crop in favor of almonds reveals about premium farmland and a warming planet|url=https://www.marketwatch.com/story/what-californias-fading-cotton-crop-in-favor-of-almonds-reveals-about-premium-farmland-and-a-warming-planet-11635862203|url-status=live|access-date=2021-11-04|website=MarketWatch|language=EN-US|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211102143921/https://www.marketwatch.com/story/what-californias-fading-cotton-crop-in-favor-of-almonds-reveals-about-premium-farmland-and-a-warming-planet-11635862203 |archive-date=November 2, 2021 }}</ref> About one-sixth of the US' irrigated land is in the Central Valley.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Reilly |first=Thomas E. | title=Ground-Water Availability in the United States: U.S. Geological Survey Circular 1323 | page=84 | publisher=U.S. Geological Survey | location=Denver, CO | year=2008 | isbn= 978-1-4113-2183-0}}</ref>

Virtually all non-tropical crops are grown in the Central Valley, which is the primary source for produce throughout the United States, including tomatoes, grapes, cotton, apricots, and asparagus.<ref>{{cite magazine|last=Pollan|first=Michael|author-link=Michael Pollan|date=December 16, 2007|title=Our Decrepit Food Factories|url=http://michaelpollan.com/articles-archive/our-decrepit-food-factories/|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111118073604/http://michaelpollan.com/articles-archive/our-decrepit-food-factories/|archive-date=November 18, 2011|access-date=November 13, 2011|magazine=The New York Times magazine}}</ref> Six thousand [[almond]] growers produced more than {{convert|600|e6lb|e6kg}} in 2000, about 70 percent of the world's supply and nearly 100 percent of domestic production.<ref>{{Cite news |title=California's Central Valley. Where the Mountains Are Almonds |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2000/09/06/dining/national-origins-california-s-central-valley-where-the-mountains-are-almonds.html |newspaper=[[The New York Times]] |quote= The state's 6,000 growers produce more than 600 million pounds a year, more than 70 percent of the world's supply and virtually 100 percent of domestic production. |date=September 6, 2000 |access-date=December 16, 2008 |first=Todd S. |last=Purdum}}</ref><ref name=FAOSTAT>{{cite web |url=http://faostat3.fao.org/browse/Q/QC/E |publisher=Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, Statistics Division, FAOSTAT |title=Production/Crops for almonds with shell |format=database |date=2013 |access-date=December 22, 2015 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161122053717/http://faostat3.fao.org/browse/Q/QC/E |archive-date=November 22, 2016 }}</ref>

The US' top four counties in agricultural sales are in the Central Valley (2007 Data).<ref name=" overview" /><ref>{{cite web |first=Timothy S. |last=Parker |url=http://www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/state-fact-sheets/state-data.aspx?StateFIPS=00#.VBmjifldXzg |title=United States Fact Sheet: US agriculture income population food education employment unemployment federal funds farms top commodities exports counties financial indicators poverty food security farm income Rural Nonmetro Urban Metropolitan America USDA organic Census of Agriculture |publisher=Ers.usda.gov |date=October 27, 2011 |access-date=November 13, 2011 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120626232232/http://www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/state-fact-sheets/state-data.aspx?StateFIPS=00#.VBmjifldXzg |archive-date=June 26, 2012 }}</ref>

{| class="wikitable sortable"
! County !! Sales
|-
| Fresno County ||$3.731B
|-
| Tulare County || $3.335B
|-
| Kern County 
|$3.204B
|-
| Merced County || $2.330B 
|}

Early farming was concentrated close to the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, where the water table was high year-round and water transport was readily available. Subsequent irrigation projects brought many more parts of the valley into productive use.<ref>{{cite journal|title=They Rule the Valley: The Story of How Large Central Valley Landholders Became the Primary Beneficiaries of the Central Valley Project|last=Flores|first=Christina|date=March 1, 2011|publisher=UC Berkeley|url=https://escholarship.org/uc/item/7s79r340}}</ref> The even larger [[California State Water Project]] was formed in the 1950s and construction continued over the following decades.

===National Farmworkers Association (NFWA)===
In the 1960s, farm labor leaders [[Cesar Chavez]] and [[Dolores Huerta]] organized [[Mexican American]] grape pickers into a [[trade union|union]], the [[National Farmworkers Association]] (NFWA), to improve their working conditions. This organizing took place primarily in the Central Valley because of the extensive agriculture, especially in and around [[Delano, California|Delano]].<ref>{{Cite book |last=Pawel |first=Miriam |title=The Crusades of Cesar Chavez: A Biography |publisher=Bloomsbury Press |year=2014 |isbn=978-1608197101 |language=English}}{{pageneeded|date=March 2025}}</ref>