As we enter another period of sustained drought, two questions come to mind. What lessons have carried over from the past drought and what is the state doing about it?Curt Hoekstra is a third-generation dairy farmer near Oakdale. His family has seen drought before but that doesn’t mean it’s easy. "Yeah, anytime where there's a shortage of water it hurts you on your crops, on your growing," Hoekstra said. Prices for hay, really all feed for cows, have been steadily climbing. In drought years those prices get worse. Hoekstra said he's seen a more than 36% increase in feed prices. He adds that feeding all the animals accounts for more than 53% of total operating expenses. Even with prices high, farmers like Hoekstra will have to prepare for another hit as California deals with yet another drought."California is not a stranger to drought. It's part of our normal climate system and, in fact, we had a 5-year drought in water years 2012 to 2016, and this just really illustrates how variable our precipitation is," said Jeanine Jones with the California Department of Water Resources.Jones is the Interstate Resources Manager with the department. She says that even though we know our climate varies, higher temperatures in a warming climate come with new drought challenges."So, for example, record low snowpack in 2014-2015 increased amount of hard harmful algal blooms, and certainly much more wildfire, which is something we are continuing to see through today. Think about last year in Northern California for example, so you know every time we have a drought we, we learned more lessons," Jones said.Some of those lessons include protections and regulations groundwater, like the enactment of the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act in response to 2018's dry conditions."We have a package of water conservation laws called Making Water A Way Of Life you know that package of legislation we had provisions directed at consolidation authority for small water systems to make it easier for them to connect to larger water systems if they're having problems," Jones said.However, it's a long-term plan left in the hands of individual water districts, although some have made continual changes in preparation for the next drought. "It's always a concern both from just a district perspective but from a basin-wide perspective to ensure that we're not pulling from the groundwater aquifer when we don't need to," said Eric Thornburn with the Oakdale Irrigation District. He says that as funds become available, they've made more and more improvements to prepare for droughts like this one.The water system along the water canals in Stanislaus County are now automated, eliminating drop boards that are put in by hand and water losses, making things more efficient. Even so, in preparation for this drought, they have started using groundwater from some deep wells."We want to really make sure that we've got enough water to move all the way through the season and then as the projections become a little more certain as we move through the year then we'll probably kick off the deep wells and get by with surface waters much as possible," Thornburn said.Modesto Congressman Josh Harder told KCRA 3 he sees the drought as a wake-up call."Three-quarters of California is already experiencing severe drought conditions. We need to use this drought as motivation to finally build the projects we should have built 50 years ago," Harder said.Harder points out that drought hits farms hard, but it hits the communities even harder -- affecting both jobs and the economy."When we look at a drought year like this one, we're talking about 30% layoffs and some parts of the Central Valley in our agriculture industry. That's devastating especially after the COVID pandemic that we've been dealing with over the last year," Harder said.Hoekstra's lessons from past droughts have included capturing and storing rainwater in good years and scaling back his reliance on hay and alfalfa.But in the end, he says no one can predict when a drought will hit or how long it will last. --Video from previous broadcast.