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California governor defends drought order that spares farmers

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CALIFORNIA (NEWS1130) – California Gov. Jerry Brown is defending his order of mandatory water cutbacks statewide that doesn’t restrict farmers.

Brown says that farmers have already been denied irrigation water from federal surface supplies, and they’ve had to leave hundreds of thousands of acres unplanted. As California endures a fourth year of drought, Brown this week ordered the restrictions of 25 per cent statewide compared with water use in 2013.

Brown says California’s agricultural industry make up less than 2 per cent of the state’s economy, but the state grows most of the country’s fruits and vegetables.

He says many farmworkers are going without work.

Brown’s order comes as the mountain snowpack amounts to just 5 per cent of historical average, the lowest in 65 years of record-keeping.

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