Essay On California Drought

Economically speaking, is agriculture worth the water in California? In the past year, California has been experiencing record-breaking drought and many communities are being subjected to severe restrictions. Now, citizens are wondering where the water comes from and where it goes. Some individuals support agriculture even through drought events, noting that although drought consequences are often felt immediately, economic consequences are felt in the short and long term. Others say there isn’t sufficient justification to continue agricultural production in drought events when urban areas and natural waterways are so affected.

Karen Ross, the California Agriculture secretary and Daniel Sumner, a professor of agricultural and resource economics

at UC Davis both support maintaining current agricultural production. They aim to educate concerned Californians on the importance of an agricultural economy by stating “Food is central to California in more than just the nutritional sense (Ross, Sumner 2015).” Adversely, Matt Weiser, National Geographic Author; Tom Stokely, a policy analyst with the California Water Impact Network; and UC Davis agricultural engineer Blaine Hanson do not support maintaining current agricultural production. “Farms consume 80% of the state's water and generate only about 2% of its gross domestic product (Hanson 2015).” They propose freeing the land from agriculture production so the demand for water in urban areas is satisfied.
Much of the public eye has been focused on almonds and alfalfa being the biggest water guzzlers.

Hanson says “[It]takes about 1 million gallons of water per acre per year.” In his presentation, a graph demonstrates that alfalfa, forage, and deciduous trees use the most water per acre. He also mentions that cropland irrigation inefficiencies are wasteful and partly to blame (Hanson, 2015). In a National Geographic article, Matt Weiser reports that “Over the last decade, California farmers have planted at least 270,000 acres of new almond orchards, an increase of 35 percent. California now produces about 82 percent of the world’s almonds. About two-thirds of the crop is exported.”And he says that almonds extremely efficient at converting water into money. However, there is a downside. A corn farmer can leave a field fallow for a season and not lose as much invested capital as a almond farmer would if he let his orchard die (Weiser, 2015). The previously mentioned 2% agricultural GDP is also misleading. Agriculture relies heavily on other economic sectors like transportation, utility, wholesale trade, and retail. And water use? “It's only possible to arrive at 80% by not accounting for the amount of water dedicated to environmental uses. (For example, the water in rivers that flows into the sea.) (Ross, Sumner

2015)”
Some solutions have been recommended. They could Implement better irrigation systems so that water waste is minimized, but that requires huge capital investment with very slow return. Could the farmer stay in operation with those costs? They could suspend senior water rights holders. Almond orchards would die, investments difficult to recover, jobs lost, and almond prices increase. Same may happen for different crop managers. Or, they could remove agricultural land from production. Yet, this may diminish drinking water quality by removing agricultural barriers that slow surface water runoff. The faster the runoff flows, the more likely the established buildup of undesirable materials and chemicals will find its way into drinking water sources.