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Strawberry Fields Forever? Thirsty Baja Turns To Desalination To Grow Lucrative Crop

About 180 miles south of San Diego, in the arid region of Baja California in an area called the San Quentin valley, there are seemingly endless fields full of strawberries.

It’s a region that’s already incredibly dry, and a crop that’s incredibly thirsty. Despite this, they are so profitable, farmers there won’t stop growing them anytime soon.

So with an ongoing drought and climate change on the horizon, how will the industry sustain itself?

Felicity Barringer dug into this story as part of KJZZ's collaborative reporting from Elemental: Covering Sustainability. She’s the writer in residence at Stanford University’s Bill Lane Center for the American West.

Lauren Gilger, host of KJZZ's The Show, is an award-winning journalist whose work has impacted communities large and small, exposing injustices and giving a voice to the voiceless and marginalized.