Rain impacts on farming communities across the valley

TULARE COUNTY, Calif. (KFSN) -- Many farm grounds across the valley floor are saturated, keeping some farmworkers out of most fields for the past week.

However, consistent rain across the Valley floor this past week has mostly been welcomed by local growers.

"We need that rain to help restore the ground water, put some moisture back into the soil and get some snow up into the mountains so we can start storing up water for next year," says John Chandler, who farms almonds, citrus, and wine grapes.

Chandler says almonds and grapes are already harvested so the rain has minimal impact.

But for citrus, it's a different story.

"The citrus is still on the tree and some of the early citrus is getting ready to harvest, so it may slow down the harvest for a little bit but other than that this isn't really the worst time to get rain, during this winter time is when we like to see some of this rain coming in," explains Chandler.

Some employees can move indoors to catch up on equipment maintenance - but for farmworkers who pick fruit, wet weather means staying out of the fields-and out of work.

"We can't have people picking the fruit itself because of staining and quality issues and safety issues for them," says Jose Rivas who is a field representative for California Citrus Association.

He has worked in agriculture for 20 years.

Although Rivas says the rain is always welcomed, for those impacted employees, the timing couldn't be worse.

"This week those couple hundred three hundred people are not having a paycheck, and being so close to the holidays everyone needs a paycheck right now," explains Rivas, "We will be picking Saturday and Sunday to make up for what the buyers need."

Rivas says they will get back into the fields as soon as it's safe but they are at the mercy of the weather.