I paid $13.85 Saturday for a watermelon.

That is not a typo.

It was about an ounce under 14 pounds.

The price was 99 cents a pound at the Manteca Food-4-Less.

In three months or so, I will likely be able to buy an even bigger watermelon by paying probably $6 or so less at Perry’s Market on Frontage Road northwest of the Highway 99 and Lathrop Road interchange.

And although the watermelon that came from Central America wasn’t bad in terms of taste and sweetness, it doesn’t compare to what is grown in the fields around Manteca, Ripon, and Tracy.

The reason is simple.

The well-drained soil, hot days, and cooling overnight breezes courtesy of the Delta do the same thing for watermelons that it does for grapes.

Ones grown farther south in the fields around Firebaugh are good, but not on the level as ones Van Groningen & Sons grow in the fields east of Manteca and are found in stores under the Yosemite Fresh label.

The same goes for those Perry & Sons broker from the fields of growers in the Manteca area.

San Joaquin County in 2024 produced 36.7 percent of California’s watermelons.

It was by far the largest county for watermelons in the Golden State yielding 43,900 tons from 1,880 acres for an overall crop value of $19.3 million.

So why do you care about a $13.85 watermelon?

Call it what Charles Dickens might — the ghost of grocery stores to come.

It is where we are headed if we don’t start taking food security seriously.

California is by far the largest peach growing state in the United States. That, however, is about to come to the end with Del Monte pulling the plug on its Modesto canning operations.

You won’t notice a thing in terms of supply because cheaper imports will take over shelf space or fill bins in the produce section.

Asparagus — the “local” crop that Stockton hangs its civic pride hat on — is all but gone from the fields in the Delta and farther south down the valley.

Cheaper asparagus is imported from Mexico. And even though asparagus aficionados will tell you California asparagus has a higher quality, consumers aren’t willing to pay a premium price for it.

Keep in mind California is by far the biggest producing farm state in the nation with $61 billion in annual crop value. The Golden State has 4 percent of farmland in the USA but grows roughly a quarter of its food, according to the United States Geological Survey.

Seventy-three percent of the nation’s fruits and nuts are grown in California and about 40 percent of the vegetables.

And most of the fruits, vegetables, nuts grown in California comes from the San Joaquin Valley.

So, what has this to do with $13.85 watermelons and the ghost of grocery stores to come?

It’s because we are in a teachable moment.

Tariffs, cheap farm labor in foreign countries, skyrocketing oil prices, and the pressures of urbanization are steering the United States on a path where will grow less food, import more of it for our tables, and pay much higher prices.

It does cost less for labor in Latin American countries to grow food.

But it also takes a lot more energy to get what farms produce in other countries to your table than food produced domestically.

Watermelons are a large and heavy item.

It doesn’t take too much calculations to determine watermelon from Central America with a year around growing climate would  be expensive substitutes in the summer months if watermelon production in our own backyard, throughout California, and the rest of the nation almost literally withered away.

Much ado is made about the price and supply of wheat on the world market.

But when it comes to setting the stage for long-term affordability and stability, the impacts of shrinking domestic production of vegetables, fruit, and nuts could make what we pay for produce rival the shock of forking out $13.85 for a watermelon.

And that doesn’t include the deterioration in freshness and quality shipping produce from fields and orchards hundreds and even thousands of miles away.

It is always rich to see the lack of depth in how the world works in terms of food security, production, and affordability when it comes to debates about water use during droughts.

The fallback position for hardcore advocates of certain water levels committed to fish flows or the Southern California urban water canal comes in times of drought is almost always the same.

Cut off water to farms because we either grow too much that we export much of a crop — such as almonds — or else we can import the food we need.

That tunnel vision very nicely glosses over some indisputable facts.

*Rarely, as in basically never, is only one region on the planet under drought conditions at any given time.

*The ability to feed your own population is a crucial part of the national security puzzle.

*Food grown close to where it is consumed is not only fresher but takes less energy to go from the field to the table.

*The export of much desired United States farm staples, especially California crops like almonds, helps keep America’s trade deficit from ballooning even larger.

*Food grown in the United States isn’t subject to foreign tariffs.

*Based on U.S. Department of Labor stats, the average American household spent 42.5 percent of its income on food in 1900, 33.6 percent in 1930, and 11.2 percent in 2022.

Keep in mind back in 1900 only 1 in 90 American households had a car, only 1 in 8 had gas electric lights, 1 in 4 had running water and even less owned the home they lived in.

The reason why we can afford a lot of things we do today — smartphones, televisions, sanitary wastewater systems, safe drinking water, and being more mobile — is because American farming has done its job to produce a lot more food on less land with a lot less labor.

We lose that advantage once we start losing farming.

And in doing so, it will set the stage for what most of the rest of the world “enjoys” which is spending more of their household income on food.

It is what will happen in our country if we gloss over the economic and strategic advantage of a robust agriculture sector.

It opens the door for $13.85 watermelons, not just in the off-season, but year round.

 This column is the opinion of editor, Dennis Wyatt, and does not necessarily represent the opinions of The Bulletin or 209 Multimedia. He can be reached at dwyatt@mantecabulletin.com