20,000 acres of farmland in Monterey County damaged after storm

SALINAS, CALIFORNIA. (KION-TV) – Local farmers are happy that water has come to the Central Coast, but at what cost? Monterey County Farm Bureau Executive Director Norm Groot provides some insight.

“At the moment we are evaluating somewhere from 20,000 acres of land, they may be affected at this stage,” Groot said. And it could be between $40 million and $50 million.”

Flood waters are still lingering on some plots of land. Everything on Hilltop Road looks very different from what we showed you last week.

But across the road, water still hangs around. According to CEO Seth Karma, some farms, like Salad Savoy, are lucky that their land has not been so affected.

“We were able to get enough space between them so that we had really good soil,” Karm said. “So he was out. You definitely had some water in the soil, but it was haunting the furrows.”

Seeing what a big storm will still be nerve-wracking when it hits.

“Oh no, I was, I was definitely nervous,” Karm said. “It was like when you see an atmospheric river storm when we had it, obviously last year, the year before last, and you know, you know what your soil saturation rate is. But you just don’t know. I mean, I don’t know how many inches it will bring. I don’t know if it will be eight inches during a storm. Will it be in inches in one day?”

Luckily, the Farm Bureau reports that most of the flooded areas have failed to produce crops. For those who did, they are gathering all this information to see what elements were affected.

A survey is available for those affected by the 2023 Winter Storm. You can view it here.

State and local teams continue to monitor storm damage in flood-hit areas in Monterey County.