Californians need to worry about food security, says commentary
Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on November 30, 2008 at 8:05 am
From the San Francisco Chronicle, this commentary by A.G. Kawamura, the secretary of the California Department of Food and Agriculture:
At a time when people are deeply concerned about our dependence on imported oil, we should also be concerned about increasing our state’s dependence on imported food. In fact, our ability to feed our state could be seriously threatened by problems such as a long-term drought, the state’s aging water delivery and supply system, and court-ordered water supply cuts.
When people talk about food security, it’s normally a social justice topic at international conferences on hunger and famine. But it’s a term that we’re hearing more in California as population growth, along with land use and water policies, puts more pressure on this state’s agricultural industry. Rather than referencing worries about global food shortages, food security for Californians is about whether our state can continue to be the nation’s top food producer.
One of the major threats to the state’s farming industry is our lack of water. California’s drought, combined with court-ordered cuts in water deliveries, is threatening our food production.
Because of the water shortage, growers are cutting back on production, fallowing land and stumping trees. The drought has cost the state more than $250 million in lost plantings and 80,000 acres of crops this year alone. And that doesn’t include the huge amount of idle farmland that hasn’t been planted in the past few years because of an unpredictable water supply.
Read more from the San Francisco Chronicle by clicking here.
Water Summit works through cutback woes: Growers must decide between lower deliveries, discounts
Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on November 28, 2008 at 8:37 amFrom Capital Press:
Water is getting harder to come by in San Diego County, and growers are struggling to find answers on how to cope. The problem has been created by drought, court orders, new environmental regulations and water supply decisions. “This water situation isn’t short-term,” said Ken Roth, chairman of the California Avocado Commission’s Southern California Agricultural Water Team. “We will have to work with this situation for a while.”
San Diego County agriculture is among the most water-intensive in the nation. High-value nursery crops - citrus and avocados - require large water allotments. Most irrigating water comes from Northern California via canals.
San Diego growers had been getting up to 30 percent discounts from the regional Metropolitan Water District of Southern California that distributes water to SoCal water districts. The flip side of that program was a pledge by growers to take cuts of up to 40 percent of their water allotment should the resource become scarce.
Nearly three years of drought and small snowpacks have pulled water out of the system for farmers and city dwellers alike, felt all the more harshly in San Diego with its dry conditions and urban population. A federal judge’s recent ruling in favor of the endangered delta smelt also affects supplies.
“We can’t underestimate the impact of the drought the last few years; that represented about two-thirds of the impact and the judge’s ruling affecting the other third,” said Michael Hurley, principal water resources manager at Malcolm Pirnie Environmental Inc.
Read more from the Capital Press by clicking here.
Multi-tasking canola: California’s miracle crop?
Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on November 27, 2008 at 9:38 amFrom the San Jose Mercury News:
A hardy but pedestrian plant is doing triple duty in California’s agricultural heartland, absorbing a salt that once deformed waterfowl by the millions, creating clean-burning biofuel and nourishing cattle with the leftovers.
Crop-crippling selenium in soil and groundwater makes the arid west side of the San Joaquin Valley a challenge for farmers, whose diesel tractors have been blamed for helping cause the worst air quality in the nation.
But farmers, water managers and agriculture researchers are closely watching an experiment using canola plants to absorb the salt from soil and water. The seeds are then crushed to extract oil for blending into environmentally friendly biodiesel.
If that were the end of the story, it would be just another case of farmers turning food into fuel. Yet at John Diener’s Red Rock Ranch in this town 60 miles southwest of Fresno, the selenium-rich canola byproduct has an even higher calling: cattle feed naturally infused with an essential micro-nutrient.
In a trial, Diener’s canola meal was fed to dairy cows on the east side of the Valley, where selenium does not occur naturally and has to be added to food rations.
“It’s all part of what we have to try to do here to turn a profit,” said Diener, who also grows almonds, tomatoes, grapes and corn on 5,000 acres. “The controversy of the day is taking ground for food crops and using it to make energy. This is taking ground that isn’t good for anything right now.”
Read more from the San Jose Mercury News by clicking here.
Wine company tries cooperation over regulation: Jackson family builds ponds for tiger salamander
Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on November 27, 2008 at 7:36 amFrom the Lompoc Record:
They’re not furry or cuddly and they don’t live very interesting lives. But the California tiger salamander made it onto the endangered species list and has since then disrupted many development projects. However, one area property owner decided to work with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to learn more about the elusive amphibian in the hopes that further study would help with future projects on the property.
Jackson Family Wines, known formerly as Kendall-Jackson Wine Estates, created two new ponds on its 5,400-acre property in Los Alamos that may lure the spotted creature out for breeding purposes.
Jackson Family Wines signed an agreement with Fish and Wildlife to have their property excluded from the agency’s critical habitat designation in exchange for developing conservation measures to protect the salamander.
“It’s a very cooperative relationship,” said Lee Anne Edwards, the Jackson vice president of real estate. She added that the company is a “really big land steward” in its operations.
Read the rest of this story from the Lompoc Record by clicking here.
“Efficient” drip irrigation may deplete more water
Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on November 26, 2008 at 6:40 amFrom the Worldwatch Institute:
An Israeli water engineer was sitting under a tree one day when he noticed a leaking faucet slowly drip water to the tree’s roots, a nearly 50-year-old irrigation tale says.
The idea inspired the invention of modern drip irrigation, also known as micro-irrigation. The method runs water through plastic tubes that release the flow through small holes directly to crop roots or stems.
The precise application allows drip-irrigated crops to be watered more frequently than with traditional sprinkler methods. Yet farmers waste fewer resources because most water is absorbed through transpiration. As a result, many governments have encouraged drip irrigation as a water-conserving technology that can boost crop yields.
But drip irrigation may have a downside, according to a study published in last week’s Proceedings of the National Academies of Science. In traditional flood or sprinkler irrigation, “wasted” water - the water not absorbed by crops - seeps into the ground and recharges the below-surface aquifers used by area farmers. As drip irrigation becomes more common, recharge of groundwater may be less frequent, the study said.
“I think it’s very true that drip irrigation and drip irrigation subsidies definitely contribute to food security and increased farm income,” said Frank Ward, the study’s co-author and a professor of water resource economics at New Mexico State University. “The only downside…is that drip irrigation could be using more water.”
Read more from the Worldwatch Institute by clicking here.
Growers face difficult planting choices
Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on November 26, 2008 at 5:54 amFrom the California Farm Bureau Federation:
For California’s agricultural producers, whether they specialize in permanent crops, annual crops or livestock, next year is fraught with uncertainty. The biggest concerns are three–water availability, work force availability and the cost of farming.
Farmers are making tough decisions now and in the coming weeks regarding what to plant, how much to plant and how to best use a water supply that could fluctuate dramatically depending on how much precipitation the state’s watersheds receive over the next five months.
Livestock producers face similar difficult decisions. Do they start severely culling their herds, or do they expand? The high cost of feed will have a major impact on those choices.
Throw into the equation the regulatory challenges created by legislation such as the Endangered Species Act and the Clean Water Act, and the picture becomes even murkier.
“Clearly for many Central Valley growers, access and price of water is first. Second, labor availability and cost is vital for many crops. Third, input prices, fertilizer and fuel especially, have been up and now down. This is a tough call to decide to lock in input prices now or hope they continue to come down,” said Daniel A. Sumner, director of the University of California Agricultural Issues Center in Davis.
“Fourth, the same issue in reverse on the output price side. Not only have field crop prices dropped, but the stronger dollar and worldwide recession cause serious concerns for the market for wine, nuts and crops that depend on export markets and economic growth,” Sumner said.
What if water rules change? Water users who rely on federal projects to deliver water may think they know what their rights are, but they could be wrong.
Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on November 23, 2008 at 7:35 amFrom Ag Weekly Online:
Water users who rely on federal projects to deliver water may think they know what their rights are, but they could be wrong.
Take the shareholders in the Stockton East Water District. The district is located in a part of California that has been heavily dependent on ground water since the Gold Rush days. The aquifer is in a state of critical overdraft, said Jennifer Spaletta, an attorney from California that is representing Stockton East in a court case that began when she was still in school.
In the 1970s, the Bureau of Reclamation built a dam on the Stanislaus River and created a reservoir that holds 2.4 million acre-feet of water to relieve the pressure on the aquifer. BuRec contracted with two entities to provide 155,000 acre-feet of water provided those entities built the infrastructure to get the water from the reservoir to their projects.
So Stockton East sold bonds and assessed everyone from irrigators to homeowners to raise the $65 million needed to build the 25 mile-long conveyance system that included tunneling through the mountains.
The BuRec contracts were signed in 1983, the canal system was completed in 1992, the same year Congress redirected BuRec to use 800,000 acre-feet of the yield of the reservoir for fish restoration. As soon as Stockton East finished building the canal system, it asked for 10,000 acre-feet of water and was denied.
And that raises a couple of questions: What does the law mean when contractors have contracts to receive water from a federal Bureau of Reclamation project but the federal government decides to use the water for a different purpose? If the government decides to use the water for fish restoration is that a takings, a breach of contract or a really bad deal?
Read more from the Ag Weekly Online by clicking here.
Does drip irrigation really reduce water consumption?
Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on November 21, 2008 at 8:21 amMaybe not, says a new study. From the New York Times:
With flood irrigation, much of the water is not used by the plants and seeps back to the source, an aquifer or a river. Drip irrigation draws less water, but almost all of it is taken up by the plants, so very little is returned. “Those aquifers are not going to get recharged,” Dr. Ward said.
Drip irrigation also generally increases crop yields, which encourages farmers to expand acreage and request the right to take even more water, thus depleting even more of it. “The indirect effect is very possibly to undermine policy attempts to reduce water consumption,” Dr. Ward said.
Policymakers, he added, must balance the need for more food and for farmers to make a living with water needs. “It’s fair to say that subsidies are very good for food security and very good for farmer income,” Dr. Ward said. “But they may be taking water away from other people.”
The Los Angeles Times’ Greenspace blog agrees:
While drip irrigation can require half the water that flood irrigation does, plants absorb more water with drip, crop yield increases and more water is lost to evapotranspiration. Because drip is more efficient, there is also less overflow to seep back into aquifers or wash into nearby streams or rivers.
That means less water for downstream users and future generations dependent on the aquifers. “Higher consumption comes from someplace — someone else’s use,” Ward said. Drip, he added, has its benefits. “It’s just not a water conserving thing.”
Related discussion: Guest blogger JWT at Aguanomics starts out with a post about farm conservation versus urban conservation, and a great discussion ensues. Check it out from the Aguanomics blog: Cutting fat or muscle?
Water quality advances in danger: Farmer sees conflict between food safety and conservation
Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on November 21, 2008 at 5:51 amFrom the Capital Ag Press:
Farmers now have more to balance than their checkbooks. Profit margins aside - it’s safety margins that can spell out a good harvest or doom it for waste. To ensure their crops meet safety standards, some are questioning and even abandoning conservation practices.
According to speakers at the fourth annual Sustainable Ag Expo, strides made in water quality improvements on farms in recent years are in danger of being lost due to food safety concerns.
Since the 2006 E. coli outbreak in spinach that was traced to a San Benito County farm, growers of leafy-green vegetables have come under increased pressure to remove all possible sources of pathogens from their fields.
Conservation practices such as vegetative filter strips, hedgerows and ponding basins, promoted to growers as improving water quality, have been questioned. The practices prevent run-off of sediment, nutrients and pesticides from fields, but buyers of leafy greens and third-party auditors charged with ensuring food safety are asking growers to curtail those practices because they believe them to a source of pathogens that can cause food-borne illness.
“There is the perception of risks to food safety, but there is no good data to back it up,” said Trevor Suslow, a University of California researcher.
Read more from the Capital Ag Press by clicking here.
Urban growers go high-tech to feed city dwellers
Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on November 21, 2008 at 5:24 amFrom the San Francisco Chronicle:
Terry Fujimoto sees the future of agriculture in the exposed roots of the leafy greens he and his students grow in thin streams of water at a campus greenhouse. The program run by the California State Polytechnic University agriculture professor is part of a growing effort to use hydroponics — a method of cultivating plants in water instead of soil — to bring farming into the cities where consumers are concentrated.
Hydroponic farming requires less water and less land than traditional field farming, leading Fujimoto and researchers-turned-growers in other U.S. cities to see it as the perfect way to bring agriculture to apartment buildings, rooftops and vacant lots. “The goal here is to look at growing food crops in small spaces,” Fujimoto said.
Long a niche technology existing in the big shadow of conventional growing methods, hydroponics is getting a second look from university researchers and public health advocates. Supporters point to the environmental cost of trucking produce from farms to cities, the loss of wilderness for farmland to feed a growing world population, and the risk of bacteria along extensive, insecure food chains as reasons for establishing urban hydroponic farms.
However, the expense of setting up the high-tech farms on pricey city land and providing enough year-round heat and light could present some insurmountable obstacles. “These are university theories,” said Produce Business magazine editor Jim Prevor. “They’re not mapped to things that actually exist.”
Read more from the San Francisco Chronicle by clicking here.
San Joaquin River restoration bill clogged; Fish and Game Commission votes to cut water deliveries
Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on November 20, 2008 at 3:27 pmFrom the Capital Ag Press:
Delay in the action on the San Joaquin River restoration bill until early 2009 is cutting it close. Interim flows down the river are scheduled to begin next year.
The legislation, authored by Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., funds the massive restoration project aimed at returning a salmon run on the river. On Monday, Nov. 17, lawmakers in Washington, D.C., decided to postpone action on the large public lands bill that included Feinstein’s bill.
The Senate will take up the bill when the new Congress convenes. Stalled since 2006, the bill provides $88 million in funding, far short of the $250 million in the original legislation. The funding will implement the settlement reached between east side water users and environmental groups in 2006.
Water users who receive San Joaquin River water stored behind Friant Dam agreed to send part of their water down the river channel to restore a salmon fishery. In the settlement, they are promised that the amount of water they lose will be capped, and there will be improvements in the water delivery system to route water back to them.
Recent news of further restrictions for the longfin smelt could have implications for Friant water users:
New restrictions in delta pumping to protect longfin smelt would not directly affect the water deliveries to exchange contractors, Chedester said, but it could impact the Bureau of Reclamation and how it operates the water delivery system. If the bureau can’t deliver water from the delta, they will have to take it from Friant, he said, because the districts hold senior water rights.
Get the full story from the Capital Ag Press by clicking here.
Cost-cutting program drying up on farmers in Rancho California Water District
Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on November 16, 2008 at 6:26 amFrom Riverside’s Press-Enterprise:
Farmers served by the Rancho California Water District will pay more for water. It’s just a question of when.
A program that allowed farmers to get cheaper water in exchange for agreeing to cutbacks in supplies in drier times could be phased out by 2013. That means farmers used to getting discounted water for crops will pay the same as the district’s household and industrial customers.
That, combined with higher fuel and fertilizer costs and cheaper foreign goods, is the last thing local farmers need, said Ben Drake, a district board member who runs a farm management company. “I may not be able to farm in the next eight to 10 years,” said Drake, who has been in the Temecula Valley since the 1970s. “None of my clients are spending any extra money on anything.”
Read more from the Press-Enterprise by clicking here.
Commentary: California crisis signals warning for all farmers
Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on November 13, 2008 at 7:55 amFrom the Capital Ag Press, this commentary by Frank Priestly, president of the Idaho Farm Bureau:
A drought that’s lasted only two years is creating serious problems in this nation’s most populous state. And other Western states, including Idaho, had better take notice of the simple fact that if we don’t increase water storage we are putting our food supply and our economy in jeopardy.
If the drought in California continues until spring, water officials there are planning to ration municipal water deliveries and dry up as much as 200,000 acres of farmland. Compounding California’s problem is a recent federal court ruling that limits pumping of water out of the Sacramento and San Joaquin Delta in order to protect an endangered fish, the smelt. Sound familiar?
To sum up California’s problem, the state ranks No. 1 in population with over 37 million people and No. 1 in value of agricultural output at $36.6 billion in 2007. At the present time, there’s not enough water to supply both of those demands. So water managers’ options include first, pray for rain and make plans to dry up farmland, and second, ration water to cities and encourage people to conserve, by limiting lawn watering and other activities.
Idaho citizens, lawmakers and water managers should have a clear understanding of this situation and what it means. In times of severe shortages, the municipalities will get their water first. Even though farmers may own the rights to use that water, the cities won’t get shorted in order to irrigate crops. While Idaho isn’t dealing with drought at the present time, we do live in a desert and should be making proactive plans to deal with it.
Read more of this commentary by the Capital Ag Press by clicking here.
San Diego’s North County: Farmers’ water rates to rise, supplies to fall, officials say
Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on November 13, 2008 at 5:58 amFrom the North County Times:
As the state deals with a growing water shortage crisis, local farmers will have to make some tough decisions in the near future: keep taking water at a discounted rate in exchange for reducing usage, decline the discount and try to absorb the extra costs, or discontinue farming.
Whether growers continue to take the fee reduction or not, they are likely to pay higher water rates in the coming years, officials with the San Diego County Farm Bureau said during a meeting Wednesday in Escondido.
The 15 percent discount, which amounts to about $155 per acre-foot of water, will be phased out starting next year and will disappear completely by Jan. 1, 2013. Officials said the loss of the discount was the result of a statewide water shortage due to drought.
“I don’t think there’s any going back,” said Michael Hurley, an environmental consultant for the Farm Bureau.
More than 500 farmers attended the Ag Water Summit at the California Center for the Arts, Escondido. Some farmers said the rate increases, along with new runoff water regulations due to take effect in 2010, may drive them out of business.
“They are trying to get rid of agriculture in California,” said Rosalie Caso, who owns a 20-acre avocado grove in Fallbrook.
Read more from the North County Times by clicking here.
Time seeping out for drainage debacle? State regulators give 90 days to act on half-century old environmental problem
Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on November 10, 2008 at 6:10 amFrom the California Progress Report:
Fifty years after the Westlands Water District began irrigating drainage-impaired lands in the San Joaquin Valley, causing massive accumulation of toxic selenium and other salts in the soils and drainage water, the Central Valley Regional Water Quality Control Board (Board) has taken action to address the ongoing pollution problem. In a letter last week, the Board gave the water district 90 days to file for a waste discharge permit and present a plan for cleaning up the soils that have been building up salts and toxins for decades.
While federal officials knew that providing water to Westlands from the Delta and Northern California would aggravate the naturally occurring salt-loading problems on the west side of the San Joaquin Valley, the Federal Bureau of Reclamation pushed forward with the irrigation project. As a result, the Westlands area is one of the largest, most heavily subsidized, and profitable agribusiness regions in the world as well as one of California’s worst environmental legacies.
Read more from the California Progress Report by clicking here.
Bob Perkins commentary: Farmers must educate Monterey County non-ag voters
Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on November 10, 2008 at 6:00 amFrom the Salinas Californian, this commentary by Bob Perkins, executive director of the Monterey County Farm Bureau:
With diminishing resources, California ignores its most pressing infrastructure problem: an improved water system. Water storage is back where it was in the 1977 drought, but the population has doubled. Meanwhile, fish have priority, and farms in the San Joaquin Valley are abandoning land and worrying about losing all their water.
Assemblywoman Anna Caballero, D-Salinas, tried to stir some movement in Sacramento to get a water bond on the November ballot, but the Legislature couldn’t reach agreement. The high-speed rail bond shows voters will approve a big-bucks bond that appeals to them. You’d think water would appeal to everybody.
Monterey County isn’t immune to water problems. Our own watersheds are at risk in a prolonged drought. Meanwhile, coastal and north county areas have perennial water problems, leading to serious talk about a regional water solution and reawakening local frictions.
There’s reason for farmers to be wary about regional water programs. When water gets really short, as it is in much of the state, agriculture is last in line for what’s left. At least local water agencies are talking about the future. Farmers and ranchers have to be part of that discussion.
Last Tuesday’s election reminds farmers and ranchers they must educate non-farm voters ahead of future elections.
Read the full text of Bob Perkins commentary from the Salinas Californian by clicking here.
2009 planning and planting risky business
Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on November 8, 2008 at 5:55 amFrom the Capital Ag Press:
EDITOR’S NOTE: This is a look around the state of California to see how the various sectors of agriculture are planning to deal with an uncertain 2009, a year in which they will no doubt see higher fuel and feed costs and in many cases, lower allocations of water.
It’s been raining in Northern California, but unless the recent rains continue this winter, drought could be a very real possibility in California. For agriculture, that means fallowed fields, dying orchards and vineyards and sell-offs of livestock.
Water isn’t the only potential pitfall looming: Fuel, fertilizer and feed costs soared in 2008, and even the recent relief brought by lower prices has left many input costs at historic highs. Few producers expect them to fall far anytime soon.
Farmers and ranchers are responding with belt-tightening and a wary conservatism when making planting decisions or choices about whether to increase a herd or put in another acre of vines.
Get a rundown of the outlook for dairy, vegetables, orchards, alfalfa and other agricultural sectors from the Capital Ag Press by clicking here.
Agriculture industry worrying about its image
Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on November 7, 2008 at 6:26 amFrom Stockton’s Record:
More than 50 California farm leaders and officials gathered for a midday conference Wednesday to focus on how to better connect with the general public on issues vital to their industry.
The event was given special urgency by Tuesday’s passage of Proposition 2, with which voters outlawed small cages to house egg-laying hens, despite industry arguments that such systems improve chickens’ health and productivity, as well as a university study that said the measure would simply force egg production out of the state, not change how the birds are treated.
Also earlier this year, public protests prevented use of a pheromone - an insect sex attractant - to combat an infestation of the destructive light brown apple moth, despite official reassurances the substance is safe. It acts by disrupting moth mating, not by poisoning the insects.
The public is deeply concerned about food and health issues, even to the point of acting on misinformation, said A.G. Karamura, California’s secretary of food and agriculture. “They are passionate about telling us how to farm, although they do not know how to farm,” he said.
More from Stockton’s Record by clicking here.
California drought forces cattle ranchers to downsize
Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on November 7, 2008 at 6:21 amFrom the Associated Press:
California’s worst drought in decades is forcing the state’s cattle ranchers to downsize their herds because two years of poor rainfall have ravaged millions of acres of rangeland used to feed their cows and calves.
The parched, yellow pastures on Joe Gonzales’ cattle ranch attest to the severity of a dry spell that is devastating the economic fortunes of many of the state’s beef producers. Gonzales, who normally runs 500 cows on his 2,000-acre spread about 30 miles south of San Jose, cut his herd by half over the past year and may have to sell more if the drought persists. “When there’s no rain, there’s no grass,” said Gonzales, 65. “As the drought continues, you have to either continue to feed your cattle or sell them. … It’s the worst I’ve seen it in more than 30 years.”
During most dry years, California cattlemen send their herds to places with healthier pastures or buy supplemental feed to sustain their animals until the rainy season. But high fuel prices, a lack of green pastures in California and neighboring states, and the soaring cost of livestock feed have left ranchers little choice but to sell off their mother cows because they can ill afford to feed them.
Read more from the Associated Press by clicking here.
Rainfall good for Tehama County cattlemen
Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on November 6, 2008 at 3:34 pmFrom the Contra Costa Times:
The first big rain of the year dropped 3.13 inches of rain, which is a good sign, said Felix Garcia, a forecaster in the Sacramento office of the National Weather Service.
It s a good start, Garcia said. Now, it s all about hoping it stays the same. The rain season runs from July 1 to June 30, and after a couple of dry winters, California could use some rain, he said.
There s not a lot of chances for rain in the next few days, Garcia said. However, there is a slight chance for rain on Saturday, but that depends on which forecast model you look at, he said. We use two models and so far the models don t agree, Garcia said. One model says the rain stays up north, one says it will go to the Northern Sacramento Valley and spread out there.
While a good amount of rain has fallen for the first rain of the season, it doesn t mean Tehama County is out of the woods.
Read more from the Contra Costa Times by clicking here.
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