This essay is part of What to Eat on a Burning Planet, a series exploring bold ideas to secure our food supply. Rows of almond, pistachio and citrus trees stretch as far as the eye can see, dotted by fields of grapes. Truckloads of produce zoom by, heading for markets around the country. The Central Valley of California supplies a quarter of the food on the nation’s dinner tables. But beneath this image of plenty and abundance, a crisis is brewing — an invisible one, under our feet — and it is not limited to California.

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Persons: Eliza Barclay Locations: California’s Tejon, Valley, California, Coast, Plains