{"id":398075,"date":"2026-07-14T16:34:45","date_gmt":"2026-07-14T16:34:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/398075\/"},"modified":"2026-07-14T16:34:45","modified_gmt":"2026-07-14T16:34:45","slug":"california-peach-growers-hope-next-farm-bill-will-do-more-for-specialty-crops","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/398075\/","title":{"rendered":"California Peach Growers Hope Next Farm Bill Will Do More for Specialty Crops"},"content":{"rendered":"

Peach farmers in the Central Valley have pulled up their crops and are facing financial hardship. They hope a new farm bill will help keep them going after one of the last canneries in the state closed earlier this year. <\/p>\n

Claudia Brancart, NSPR<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Sarb Johl stands in what\u2019s left of his peach orchards in Marysville, California, on June 12, 2026. Johl had to cut down over half of his peach acreage after one of the largest canneries in the state filed bankruptcy earlier this year.\u00a0(Claudia Brancart\/NSPR)<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a sweltering morning in June off State Route 70 in Marysville as Sarb Johl watches one of his employees use an excavator to push dead peach trees into ginormous, dry piles.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s picking up the trees that have already been pushed out of the ground so they can be burned,\u201d Johl said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Like a lot of farmers in Yuba and Sutter counties, Johl grows peaches \u2014 and not the kind that you buy fresh at the store or farmers\u2019 market. These peaches are grown specifically for canning.<\/p>\n

But Johl was forced to rip out over half of his peach acres after one of the last canneries in the state, Del Monte Foods, filed for bankruptcy<\/a> and then closed earlier this year. That left growers like Johl without a buyer<\/a> for their fruit \u2014 and facing a dire economic crisis.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen the processor goes out, basically you got no place to go,\u201d Johl said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In April, the United States Department of Agriculture threw farmers a lifeline by creating a $9 million program<\/a> to fund the removal of thousands of acres of trees.<\/p>\n

\"\"A pile of dead peach trees lie in a field next to an active peach orchard in Marysville, California, on June 12, 2026.<\/p>\n

\"\"An excavator destroys a portion of Sarb Johl\u2019s peach orchard in Marysville, California, on June 12, 2026. <\/p>\n

Now, farmers like Johl need to invest in growing another crop, likely a type of nut, and they\u2019re hoping the new farm bill<\/a> will provide some help to make the transition.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But it may not be that simple.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo historically, the farm bill has sort of left out specialty crop growers,\u201d said James Sayre<\/a>, an agricultural economist at UC Davis.<\/p>\n

Sayre said that specialty crops \u2014 like some fruits, vegetables and nuts \u2014 have gotten the short end of the stick when it comes to the massive piece of agriculture legislation. He said that\u2019s partially because a lot of the bill is dedicated to what are called Title I crops<\/a> \u2014 think big commodities like corn, wheat and soybeans. Title I crops are federally subsidized with insurance programs and direct payments to farmers when prices fall.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe upshot is that if you are a specialty crop grower, you basically didn\u2019t have access to many of these programs,\u201d Sayre said.<\/p>\n

\"\"Sarb Johl holds a pair of unripe peaches at his orchard in Marysville, California, on June 12, 2026.<\/p>\n

Title I crops are grown across many Midwestern states, while specialty crops are concentrated in California. Sayre said that means lawmakers from big commodity-growing regions have more votes in Congress and therefore more political power.<\/p>\n

One silver lining is that California Sen. Adam Schiff has a seat on the Senate\u2019s Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry Committee<\/a>. It\u2019s the first time in 30 years that a lawmaker from the Golden State is at the table.<\/p>\n

Schiff said one of his main priorities is to get more resources<\/a> for specialty crop farmers.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s no reason to treat these farmers differently than we treat farmers in other parts of the country that grow different crops,\u201d Schiff said.<\/p>\n

The senator said that specialty crop farmers face the same natural disasters and market pressures as commodity farmers.<\/p>\n

\"\"Sarb Johl reaches for an unripe peach at his orchard in Marysville, California, on June 12, 2026. <\/p>\n

But getting a new farm bill across the finish line has gotten more difficult since H.R. 1, the president\u2019s federal budget package, significantly cut<\/a> the food assistance program known as SNAP.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Schiff said Democrats want to see those cuts reversed in the next farm bill.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think there\u2019s some bipartisan interest in doing that,\u201d Schiff said. \u201cIf Republicans are willing to meet us, then I think we have a farm bill.\u201d<\/p>\n

But farmers like Johl can\u2019t wait around for politicians to duke it out in the halls of the Capitol. Back at the farm, he said giving up peaches entirely would be like giving up a part of his family heritage. Johl\u2019s dad immigrated from Punjab, India, in the 1960s, landing in Yuba City and working on a peach farm.<\/p>\n

Eventually, he bought his own ranch.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cHe had a love for peaches,\u201d Johl said. \u201cThat got passed on to the next generation.\u201d<\/p>\n

Johl hopes the new farm bill will include more support for specialty crop farmers, so maybe his kids can grow peaches, too.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe live by, \u2018Hey, tomorrow\u2019s gonna be a better day,\u2019\u201d Johl said. \u201c\u2018Next year is gonna be a better season.\u201d\u2019<\/p>\n

And Johl said that maybe, in another season, he\u2019ll get the chance to plant some more peach trees.<\/p>\n

This story was edited with support from\u00a0the California Newsroom<\/a>, a collaboration of public media outlets throughout the state.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Peach farmers in the Central Valley have pulled up their crops and are facing financial hardship. They hope…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":398076,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[7,9,8],"class_list":["post-398075","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-california","tag-california","tag-california-headlines","tag-california-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/398075","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=398075"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/398075\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/398076"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=398075"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=398075"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=398075"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}