“Can you see these little dots?” McFadden asks, pointing at a thermal shot of a tomato field that has suffered from a defective irrigation system. The dots on the image revealed that the system’s drip line had tears in it, he says. Watering the field became “like taking a straw, putting a bunch of pinholes in it, and trying to pump water through it.” The tomato grower used the image to show the manufacturer that the irrigation line was defective.

“Pretty striking,” McFadden says, still examining the screen. The 32-year-old field agronomist works for Ceres Imaging, a start-up in Oakland, California, that uses aerial imagery to help farmers optimize water and fertilizer application. The company is part of a growing contingent of technology start-ups vying to transform one of the state’s most powerful industries — agriculture — for a future in which its most important input grows increasingly scarce, and every drop counts.

California is the country’s top agricultural producer, growing two-thirds of the nation’s fruits and nuts and more than a third of its vegetables. Golden State farms and ranches constitute a $54 billion annual industry. The state’s ag-focused economy means growers have historically been power players in politics, especially in discussions about apportioning water.

But as growth, drought, and climate change have increased scarcity and led to louder calls for conservation, the industry’s clout has been waning.

In 2015, during a record-setting drought, Gov. Jerry Brown ordered cities and towns to reduce water use by 25 percent — the first such mandatory cutback in state history. It prompted some to criticize the agriculture sector’s consumption — which makes up 80 percent of state use — and question why the industry was spared.

Brown defended the decision, saying farmers were already among those hardest hit. Many faced huge cuts to water allotments from state and federal systems and had to pay overblown sums for the water they could access. This was particularly hard on farmers because they operate with narrow profit margins, and more than 80 percent of California farms are small and family-owned. A few months after the order for cities, as the drought slid into its fourth year, some farmers were slammed with further restrictions.

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