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WATER POLITICS

Via The Family Farm Alliance, a new report on the use of Colorado River water in agriculture (from an “ag” point of view):

In order for irrigated agriculture to exist into the future, we need to enhance management of water supplies and delivery. We must maximize the benefits from our available water to meet multiple needs. In spite of the water conservation success stories from Western municipalities like Los Angeles and Las Vegas — where growth has continued (unabated) while per-capita water consumption has decreased — we must learn to overcome our addiction to population growth, not only in the arid West, but also at the national and global levels. Similarly, all environmental water uses (instream flows for ecologic and recreational purposes, wetland development, water consumed by non-crop plants, etc.) must be closely scrutinized and managed to the same degree we are asking of our agricultural and municipal water users.

We should not specifically plan to take more water from farms. Agriculture cannot be the default “reservoir” of choice to satisfy the demands of competing sectors.

Growers across the West are stepping up, at their own expense and in partnership with state and federal funding programs, to provide solutions for the viability of their basins and the communities those basins serve. In many cases, that means senior water rights holders are voluntarily making water supplies available to junior water users, thus preventing cuts otherwise required. There are other collaborative efforts underway to fund on-farm conservation projects that are helping reduce demand. Urban, agricultural, and environmental water users would all benefit from such efforts in the short and long term.

What does not help is the relentless finger-pointing by non-agricultural water agencies and critics of agriculture, saying that farmers aren’t doing enough and what they are doing is killing fish. Critics of irrigated agriculture in the Colorado River Basin continue to shame farmers for growing crops, such as alfalfa, saying they should fallow their fields or switch to crops that use less water, which fixes nothing. The Western agricultural system was built on local supply of feed and food. Shifting production to other states adds additional food delivery miles, greenhouse gas emissions from transportation, and ultimately higher costs and/or emptier shelves at the grocery store. Locally grown food for humans, dairy, and animal proteins results in lower costs to producers and consumers.

Many agricultural regions of the West do not have an economic base that can absorb additional unemployment, business closures, and the loss of tax revenue that come with fallowing. Agricultural regions, such as the central valleys of California and Arizona, are facing a future of dwindling and unsustainable groundwater supplies as they look to replace potential shortages from traditional sources like the Bay-Delta and the Colorado River. Entire communities are at risk of closing, bankrupting their populations.

We have some decisions to make. Are we going to wake up and realize the world has drifted far from the stability we have known for our lifetimes and make required course corrections? Or do we remain committed to our own demise and continue on a crash course with what may likely be the greatest food shortage in global history? Fallowing Western farmland means increased reliance on food production in other countries with lower or non-existent production standards. Fallowing any land during a time of crisis should be temporary, or we risk losing control of our ability to provide a reliable and safe USgrown food supply.

Imperial Irrigation District General Manager Enrique Martinez said it best in a late 2022 interview with the Desert Sun: “You’ve got to…keep listening to the farmers, because ultimately, you don’t want to get to the point of creating a food crisis to solve a water crisis.”

Agricultural production in the West is an irreplaceable, strategic national resource that is vital to US food security, the ecosystem, and overall drought resilience. The role of the federal government in the 21st Century should be to protect and enhance that resource by doing whatever it can to ensure that water remains on farms. At a time of unprecedented change, one certainty holds firm and true — our nation’s most valuable natural resource must be preserved.