Drought shortens harvest season for Alhambra Valley pear crop

CONTRA COSTA COUNTY, CA (Oct. 12, 2021) — The sky begins to lighten as the sun rises over the rolling hills above Martinez, filtering light through the pear trees.

It’s going to be another hot and dry day at Alhambra Valley Pears & Beef, a farm nestled in the beautiful Alhambra Valley/Briones Valley Agricultural Preserve near Martinez.

It’s quite an enchanting rural area to live and farm in. The valley is surrounded by hills covered in stately old valley oaks and scrub. The French Butter pear trees were planted in 1919, followed by the planting of Bartlett pear trees in 1930.

Today, Alhambra Valley Pears & Beef comprises two neighboring ranches that came together in 1941 when Emma Sindicich married Edward Pereira – combining pear orchards and a cattle ranch.

Water concerns

On the surface, everything seems calm and peaceful in the early morning light. The pear trees gleam in the sun, and the cattle quietly graze on the hillside. But the Pereiras are concerned about how to get enough water to the orchards. They’re also anxious about whether there’s enough grass to feed the cattle and even enough drinking water for them.

They live near the Alhambra Valley Creek, but water hasn’t flowed there in more than two years. They’re using their dwindling well water, which is running low because the ground water is not being replenished.

The hills and orchards are dry and brown, and the soil is parched and dusty. The 500 pear trees, some more than 80 years old, are still producing, but the drought has shortened the growing season. Even though their dry-land farm technique is an example of their respect for the land and without water waste, they’re hard-pressed to get enough water to the trees.

Short harvest

“This year has been a difficult one,” Darryl Pereira says. “In a normal year during peak season, we harvest about 600 boxes of pears. This year it’s 25 percent of that, and the season is shortened to only four or five weeks.”

During a normal year with plenty of rain, they can harvest and sell pears through the end of October. This year, they finished bringing pears to the farmers market in mid-September.

“There were two bad drought years in the 1970s, where the orchard saw less than 10 inches of rain,” he adds. “But the trees are much older now and can’t handle the stress of no water as well as they used to.”

The Pereiras hope for plentiful rainfall this winter, bringing a larger crop next season as they struggle to preserve their century-old family farm.

Small farms like Alhambra Valley don’t have the resources that larger farms have during a crisis such as this, so please support them at your local farmers market when you can.

Alhambra Valley Pear Crisp

6 c. Bartlett pears, peeled, cored, sliced thick
½ c. butter, melted
4 T sugar

Topping:
2 c. all-purpose flour, or more as needed
1 c. brown sugar
½ c. white sugar
1 tsp. ground cinnamon
½ tsp. ground nutmeg
½ c. butter, chilled, cut into pieces

Preheat oven to 375. Lightly grease a 9×13-inch baking dish.
Spread pears on the bottom of the baking dish; toss with melted butter and sugar.
For the topping, stir together the dry ingredients in a bowl. Cut the butter into flour mixture until mixture resembles coarse crumbs.
Bake 30 to 35 minutes.
Recipe: Alhambra Valley Pears & Beef adaptation.

The Concord Farmers Market is in Todos Santos Plaza every Tuesday. Visit their website to learn more.