The editors of the Wall Street Journal give their take on California’s water problems:
The reality is that farm water has already been rationed for more than two decades by the ascendant green politics, starting with the 1992 federal Central Valley Project Improvement Act. Federal protections for the delta smelt, salmon, steelhead and sturgeon (2008-2009) further restricted water pumping at the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, so 76% of inflows, mainly from the Sierra Nevada mountains, spill into San Francisco Bay.
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Agriculture has had to bear the brunt of the cutbacks because farmers can more easily offset supply reductions by pumping groundwater. Cities must buy water on the market or develop new sources (e.g., reclamation projects). Yet farmers are now paying a premium to drill deeper wells to procure lower-quality water.
By the way, water rates for agriculture are not subsidized aside from the de minimis interest payment that the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation makes on the 80-year-old Central Valley Project. Urban users pay more for water because of higher treatment, procurement, infrastructure and energy costs. Water to Southern California cities must also be pumped over the Tehachapi mountains.
Now many aquifers risk depletion because farmers have had to tap groundwater during wet and dry years. This was not the case before environmental diversions. Over-pumping groundwater could make aquifers collapse permanently and land levels subside, externalities that farm communities will have to internalize.
Farmers have adapted to this undeclared water rationing in part by fallowing land. Between 1992 and 2012, about 900,000 acres of land was removed from production, according to the USDA. More than 500,000 acres have since been fallowed. One result is double-digit unemployment across the Central Valley—11.8% in Tulare, 13.1% in Fresno, 13.2% in Merced and 14.4% in Porterville.
I think that illustrates California’s basic dilemma about water. If you do want to preserve the Sacramento-San Joaquin water species and you don’t want to pay for new water development projects and you do want San Francisco, Los Angeles, and San Diego residents to have more of California’s water here’s the crux of your problem:
Some farmers have also adapted by shifting production to high-value crops. Since 1992 cotton acreage has fallen by about 80%. Roughly 100,000 acres of alfalfa have been torn out in the last four years. Almond acreage has increased by a third over the last decade. While nut trees are water-intensive and cannot be removed from production in dry years, most were planted prior to the Delta’s pumping restrictions. New almond acreage has fallen by 80% since 2005.
In other words, farmers are responding to market forces, which conservatives ought to understand even if the concept is foreign in San Francisco’s Presidio.
Those who think California should have less farming in its economic mix need to step up to the plate. They should shoulder their basic moral obligation to explain how they’re going to replace the jobs that have been lost.
Just another reason to limit the rampant and subsidized breeding in the USSA.
US fertility rates have cratered in recent years, Jimbino, falling below the replacement rate. (It was 1.86 for 2014, I believe.) That rate would be lower still if not for all the goddamn immigrants. Population growth is coming from importing people, not breeding. That’s on you libertarian & rich types, with your insistence on open borders and making citizenship a meaningless concept. Congratulations, asshole, you’re getting exactly what you wanted, so quit yer bitching’.
I don’t know if California should have less farming but I don’t necessarily think that we need it to grow as much of say, our tomatoes and lettuce as it does.
The trend towards lower alfalfa is encouraging since it suggests that California is making less animal feed; we may need California for our almonds and peaches and whatever else, but we don’t need it to feed cattle (it’s worth noting that Califonia’s started being a major exporter of alfalfa in the form of feed to China; it’s cheap to do so because otherwise the ships go back empty). Alfalfa uses more water than any other crop in California (due in part to how much of it is grown).
The question isn’t if California needs more or less ag in its economy. The questions are: How much water can California use in a year? Of that, how much should go to agriculture (right now it’s ~80%). And how should California manage that resource to maximize the value of crops? Note that this is probably the same question as “which products are hardest to substitute with those grown elsewhere?”
Despite it’s climate, Canada’s an exporter of tomatoes because of hothouse production. We can grow our tomatoes where the water is; that’s harder with olives, almonds, etc.
Keep in mind that 80% is of the water that isn’t just allowed to flow into the ocean. It’s about 40% of California’s water.
And no one knows the magic level at which agriculture in California just becomes too unprofitable to continue. The move towards higher value cash crops (like almonds) suggests that they’re moving in that direction.
Unmentioned is that California’s largest cash crop, marijuana, uses more water in its cultivation than almonds relative to sales. That may end up being a snag in legalization. Attempts to control the water use may end up driving the pot business underground even if it’s made legal.