California Real Estate Firm Founder Scott Bozzo: Here’s Why Some Farmers Are Fallowing Fields
Updated: Aug 7
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Hundreds of thousands of farmland acres could go out of production – at least temporarily -- because of California’s Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA), Macotera Ag Group President & Founder Scott Bozzo believes.
The state's Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA), passed in 2014, is forcing groundwater basins into balance after decades of overpumping. While the goal is long-term sustainability, the transition is creating difficult decisions for farmers across California's Central Valley.
For some, those decisions include intentionally leaving productive farmland idle. It's not because anyone is ordering them to stop farming. It's because the water simply isn't there.
"When these GSAs (Groundwater Sustainable Agencies) are creating these plans, they could say, 'Okay, we're going to need to fallow farmland because we can't come up with another solution,'" Bozzo told American Farmland Owner. "Maybe it's subsidence. Maybe it's saltwater intrusion. It depends on the region."
Scott Bozzo bio:
Macotera Ag Group – President/Founder
American Society of Farm Managers and Rural Appraisers, California chapter
Accredited Farm Manager
Homestead Capital -- Former Vice President Permanent Crops
UBS – Associate Director Western Region
SGMA impacts California differently
Each local GSA faces different challenges. Some are trying to slow land subsidence caused by excessive pumping. Others are battling declining aquifers or preventing saltwater from moving inland.
That means every basin has its own plan for reaching groundwater sustainability. The result is a patchwork of water budgets to which farmers must adapt.
"Some of the studies have come out and... they're talking about SGMA alone could take out 500,000 to a million acres of farmland out of production in the state," Bozzo said. "I think there's roughly 8.2 million irrigated acres in California, so it's not a small impact."
That's potentially more than 10 percent of California's irrigated farmland.
The difficult part, Bozzo said, isn't simply reducing acreage. It's figuring out how to do it without creating unintended consequences.
"What the state is concerned about, and what local people are concerned about, is you might have this checkerboard effect," he explained.
One farmer may continue producing almonds while a neighboring property sits idle because its owner no longer has enough water to remain profitable.
RELATED: Scott Bozzo told American Farmland Owner in 2025 why California farmland was losing billions of dollars in value.
SGMA enforcement
Bozzo said GSAs aren't forcing farmers off the land.
"It's not so much that the GSA is forcing or telling that farmer to fallow," he said. "It's not like they're sending the sheriff out there or something like that."
Instead, every operation has a groundwater allocation.
"Everyone has a water budget," Bozzo said. "You have to look at your water budget and figure out what you can farm sustainably and what you can't."
That math becomes especially difficult in parts of California with little or no surface water.
California almond farmers lack water
Some almond farmers are realizing that they will no longer have the available water that they need. That means that they can temporarily or permanently leave the almond business.
Other growers are already planning around SGMA before planting new orchards.
"We have a farm that we planted about half of the acres to citrus," Bozzo explained. "We purposely left the other half open. People refer to that as your ‘SGMA buffer.’"
Leaving ground unplanted creates flexibility if water supplies tighten further.
"We installed a district water turnout," he said. "When supplemental district water is available, we're just going to use that acreage as a recharge pond."
Instead of producing crops, the land can temporarily hold water, allowing it to soak back into depleted aquifers.
"You flood that land with maybe six inches to a foot of water, and let it percolate," Bozzo said. "…for the greater good."
Farmers seek alternatives
Some acres will remain in high-value permanent crops. Others may transition to recharge basins, renewable energy, wildlife habitat, or lower-water crops. And some may simply sit idle until conditions change.
SGMA was designed to make California's groundwater sustainable for future generations. But as farmers across the state are discovering, reaching that goal requires difficult decisions today.
And every acre now carries a new question: Is there enough water to justify planting it?
