California is in its third year of a catastrophic drought.
That's not news, but what IS news is just how much the drought is COSTING the state.
A new report from the University of California estimates more than $2 BILLION dollars are at stake.
Plus thousands of jobs, as many as 17,000.
(SOUNDBITE) (English) KAREN ROSS, SECRETARY OF THE CALIFORNIA DEPARTMENT OF FOOD AND AGRICULTURE, SAYING:
"There's no single action that we can take to betters survive drought in the future. It does take a portfolio approach that requires that Californians develop an ethic of conservation."
The drought has depleted the Sierra Nevada snow pack, which feeds water into the state's rivers and streams.
No water means farmers are forced to let some of their most valuable crops go fallow.
Sixty-percent of those fallowed crops -- corns, beans as well as dairy -- are dying in the San Joaquin Valley.
That's where 70 percent of the state's agricultural revenue
