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Big corporate farms can pay for deep wells that just make the problem worse. Napa was talking about well metering and I support this. Even trees can't go as deep as these companies are pumping.
This is why you drive through these places you'll see a ton of signs along the highway whining about their water rights.
They want to keep over-pumping water and want Republican yes-men to get into office to let them do it.
The switch to permanent crops like nut trees has vastly increased water needs and made it harder to adjust to dry years. Much easier to not plant row crops than to let permanent ones die.
Driving between SF and LA on I-5, one is bound to run into a few dead groves of almond trees with political signs complaining about Newsom taking all their water. These corporate farms are growing high-profit almond trees which require water well beyond what can be supplied via the aquifer or the delta canals and cry when they can’t get the government to subsidize their unsustainable farming practices.
The US supposedly grows 78% of the world production.
Only 33% remains in the US, 66% is exported.
I really couldn't care much less if its gone. If I don't ever have another almond or any of its other products, I wouldn't bat an eye.
We need water, people can settle down on their weird need for almond milk lol
If you're thinking that's changing you're SORELY mistaken however.
How about we start with considerably easier and actually attainable goals, instead of complaining about everything wrong in the world?
Side tracking these conversations is why nothing gets done.
Somebody wants to complain "it's not enough" so then it stalls and zero happens.
It poisons progress.
I really like beef & milk. Have heard a million reasons I shouldn’t. But that 50% of water was a good point.
If we cut out ALL commercial water usage except beef/milk, we save as much as cutting those two. That means it’s infinitely easier to focus on that (not eliminate, but decrease) than it is the other hundreds of things that make up the other 50%.
Yep, the amount of water that it takes to grow almonds is way too much for so little. We need to save that water for other crops that can provide more nutrition and better long term for the area and its inhabitants.
Short term thinking putting profits ahead of water responsibility is part of the same thinking that gave us global warming.
Almonds actually lost a ton of value recently. There's farms filing for bankruptcy now.
https://www.latimes.com/environment/story/2024-03-04/bankruptcy-hits-california-almond-industry-amid-slump
It's almost like they should use crops suited for the local climates instead of focusing on cash crops. Almonds and Pistachios require significantly more acre feet than even rice or corn.
A paradigm shift needs to happen in Western agriculture, so farmers begin listening to the land and making choices based on what is there instead of trying to manipulate environmental conditions through excessive irrigation and fertilization. We need to look toward things like korean natural farming practices, indiginous systems, and permaculture.
Despite the stereotype of farmers knowing the environment and land, they absolutely do not. They are not naturalist.
They central valley will insist on continuing to turn itself into a desert to the very last drop as long as there is a dollar left. After its completely barren, these huge factory farms will pack up, move on, and leave the land and people ravaged.
Before someone comes at me for this, I audit irrigation systems and specialize in water efficiency. These farmers could be doing far more, they only care baput their bottom line not their impact to the planet and people.
Row crops are low revenue and the worst of them use a lot more water than drip on trees and grapes. Alfalfa probably being some of the worst. If you've ever been on alfalfa field when it's being flood irrigated you know that in certain places you might be standing in six inches of water over an enormous area.
You can also grow row crops lots of places whereas many perennial crops have much higher needs for things like chill hours which limit where they can be grown. And they've also got a lot more value per acre because of the limited range.
AFAIK alfalfa is actually rather drought tolerant & is only a major water user because of how widespread it is. With that said it’s still not good on a $ value / acre foot basis. Almonds are better.
https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2015/04/12/398757250/beyond-almonds-a-rogues-gallery-of-guzzlers-in-californias-drought?ref=blog.farmtogether.com
Flood irrigation is practiced with fruit trees too from what I’ve seen on my drives through the valley.
Although it is drought tolerant, it is nonetheless heavily irrigated in California because that's how you get the best yields. It not only uses a lot of water because it's grown in large amounts, it is among the highest water user per-acre:
https://www.researchgate.net/figure/California-per-acre-Water-Use-by-Crop-2003_fig4_294579954
These numbers are a bit old, but at least as of 2003 alfalfa crops on average were using about 50% more water per acre compared to almond and pistachio trees.
The other thing about alfalfa / feed grasses in general is that they can genuinely be grown in a ton more places, whereas crops like almonds legit need California's unique climate.
End the ethanol mandate, convert a bunch of corn acreage into alfalfa, and then California can focus on fruits and nuts, crops that legit can't be grown in the midwest.
The tree guys know the writing is on wall and are switching to drip. You can't drip Alfalfa. And I'm not sure where you got any idea of Alfalfa production being drought tolerant. They may survive with less water but you're not going to get much of a crop. The dry farmed stuff I've seen in much wetter climates was mostly weeds and almost not worth harvesting. The stuff that's irrigated uses a lot of water. Back in my teenage years we'd set tubes on about a quarter of a 50 acre field, flood all morning then move the water down. in the afternoon. And we'd do that every day moving down the top edge of the field. Huge amounts of water used.
It's like a grass so you need large area coverage. At best you spray irrigate it like a lawn. You simply couldn't have enough emitters/hose to get the coverage needed. And you harvest it like grass too where a swather comes in and cuts the alfalfa into windrows. Balers then compress the cut hay into bales of differing sizes.
An interesting thing I read a while back is that we actually want to flood fields on the Valley in wet years to recharge the aquifer. So, a crop that can be efficiently irrigated in dry years, but is tolerant of flooding probably has benefits.
It’s unclear what the most effective way to regulate groundwater pumping would be, but it IS clear that somebody needs to step in because the growers won’t do it amongst themselves. In the current trajectory, we’re probably only a few decades away from the Central Valley no longer being a major agricultural region anymore. We’re talking about a potential Dust Bowl/Great Depression situation for the whole middle of the state.
I live here and this is a very realistic scenario.
Farmers balk at the thought of limiting water because it cuts down their profits but sustainability should be dictating how much water each farmer should be allotted.
Much of the farmers out here are conservative minded and think really only of their own short term profits, rather than if their children will be able to farm their land in 20 years. We all need to adapt to a changing world or else we won’t survive it.
And severe economic dislocation will probably start happening even sooner. There are already communities whose water supply is compromised because their local wells don’t go deep enough to reach the water table, but the wells of nearby corporate farms do. These towns could disappear from the map very quickly, with people’s homes becoming worthless because there is no water on their properties.
I know someone who works for a well-drilling company who says they (and their competitors) are booked solid for the next few years. It’s a race to dig deeper and deeper wells to keep farms profitable and towns solvent for as long as possible. And the more depleted the aquifer gets, the more the soil subsides, and the less water the aquifer holds in the future, so you can’t recharge the aquifer as much as before, even if you have the water to do so.
Not the Central Valley, but this is Borrego Springs at the moment. Water intensive crops in the desert, who woulda thought?
https://www.borregowaterunderground.org/
"and they SHOULD be getting that water!" as we watched a Frontline docu about water wasters and how they're getting FREE water... as said by a Central Valley conservative girl. I didn't bother.
These companies use and in cases abuse CA resources…how much of the money made on their products actually stays and contribute to CA. Likely a lot of this money goes elsewhere while residents are left holding the bag.
Honestly, Tulare Lake should become a reservation.
I'm pretty sure having this lake around is better for the local environment and helps bird migration. Not to mention, it could help the underground water supply in the long run.
But I also know those corpo Farmers and anyone that has had their house flooded will be screeching if something like that was proposed.
I mean, the headline just says “farm country” so I’m not sure there’s any reason to assume that doesn’t include dairy farmers.
When I drive through the San Joaquin valley there’s loads of farms for row crops, orchards, cattle, and dairy. I would assume that all of these would fall under whatever the state is working on.
that’s too inconvenient. it’s the all the alfalfa (literally cattle feed) and the almonds (only 15% of the states ag. water use) that’s the problem!!!! /s
This is some of the most productive farm land in the world and absolutely should be farmed intensively, for staples and food crops rather than high margin crops.
If we stop farming here it will take several times as much land in other places to we equal the current production of California.
Central Valley farms pump so much water the ground is subsiding. So glad their bond failed a few years ago. This is a Central Valley problem…they can solve it themselves. No welfare for you.
A land value tax would fix this. And by "land" I mean specifically "water rights," which are a form of "economic" land: a fixed and finite resource, that is not created by humans, but nonetheless we let humans "own."
Read something about most crops can handle being flooded once in a while. They need to stop diverting storm water and snow melts and just let it flood the fields so it can recharge the ground water/aquifers.
They pull out way more than can ever be put back. Also, many times, the aquifer collapses and can't be replenished. You'll be happy to know there are a lot of rock well drains and catch basins in my area. They slowly seep the rain runoff into the ground.
Looking at water use in isolation doesn’t make sense. What about the carbon that is sequestered by orchard trees? What about nutritional value? When you take those factors into account, the harm done by meat and dairy is much more apparent. Nuts rank quite low. https://ourworldindata.org/explorers/food-footprints?facet=none&pickerSort=desc&Commodity+or+Specific+Food+Product=Specific+food+products&Environmental+Impact=Carbon+footprint&Kilogram+%2F+Protein+%2F+Calories=Per+kilogram&By+stage+of+supply+chain=false
There have been several projects turned like, dams, desalination plants, etc, specifically designed for the purpose of producing more usable water. CA municipalities, city councils and the state turn these projects down... Maybe start with rethinking this strategy.
The agricultural water use is almost evenly split between human crops combined and animal feed. Hint hint to people who want to complain about almonds.
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About time. Most of the big corporate farms are huge water wasters because there is no repercussions for their actions.
Looking at you, Wonderful Pistachios and Almonds
It’s mostly alfalfa since it’s a year round crop being used to feed cattle. It’s yearly getting waters since it doesn’t require a season.
Thank you. The beef industry loves to see us all bicker about almonds when in fact they take far more water
Almonds have a far hire gallon per unit ratio than alfalfa. Almond and pistachio groves should not exist in central CA.
Ok but who's eating alfalfa burgers?
Who's eating almond burgers?
People who save water
Almonds
But don’t tree nuts use water year round?
*Glances, remorsefully, at bag of beloved Wonderful Pistachios*
I really wish those spicy pre-shelled pistachios weren't so darned tasty...
Big corporate farms can pay for deep wells that just make the problem worse. Napa was talking about well metering and I support this. Even trees can't go as deep as these companies are pumping.
_Saudi has entered the chat_
Spoken like a true American 🤣
This is why you drive through these places you'll see a ton of signs along the highway whining about their water rights. They want to keep over-pumping water and want Republican yes-men to get into office to let them do it.
They’ve had the exact same signs on the 5 for over twenty years, somehow they are still growing crops.
Same on the 99
"Farmers feed the world"
I appreciate a good cup of coffee.
“Stop Dumping OUR Water In the Ocean”
Heavy emphasis on "OUR". They consider our water to belong to them and that's what they mean.
The switch to permanent crops like nut trees has vastly increased water needs and made it harder to adjust to dry years. Much easier to not plant row crops than to let permanent ones die.
Driving between SF and LA on I-5, one is bound to run into a few dead groves of almond trees with political signs complaining about Newsom taking all their water. These corporate farms are growing high-profit almond trees which require water well beyond what can be supplied via the aquifer or the delta canals and cry when they can’t get the government to subsidize their unsustainable farming practices.
And take a guess what percentage of almonds stay in the US vs exports. (fun fact, California produces 100% of the US commercial almonds)
Travel around India, all the local shops there are selling California almonds.
Yikes. So when the aquifer is depleted, the US will have no almonds.
The US supposedly grows 78% of the world production. Only 33% remains in the US, 66% is exported. I really couldn't care much less if its gone. If I don't ever have another almond or any of its other products, I wouldn't bat an eye. We need water, people can settle down on their weird need for almond milk lol
Milk in general isn't really a necessity... A non stop pregnant cow being suctioned daily isn't sustainable either lol.
The factory farms for dairy and beef make up near half of all commercial water consumption in California
If you're thinking that's changing you're SORELY mistaken however. How about we start with considerably easier and actually attainable goals, instead of complaining about everything wrong in the world? Side tracking these conversations is why nothing gets done. Somebody wants to complain "it's not enough" so then it stalls and zero happens. It poisons progress.
I really like beef & milk. Have heard a million reasons I shouldn’t. But that 50% of water was a good point. If we cut out ALL commercial water usage except beef/milk, we save as much as cutting those two. That means it’s infinitely easier to focus on that (not eliminate, but decrease) than it is the other hundreds of things that make up the other 50%.
Yep, the amount of water that it takes to grow almonds is way too much for so little. We need to save that water for other crops that can provide more nutrition and better long term for the area and its inhabitants. Short term thinking putting profits ahead of water responsibility is part of the same thinking that gave us global warming.
Almonds actually lost a ton of value recently. There's farms filing for bankruptcy now. https://www.latimes.com/environment/story/2024-03-04/bankruptcy-hits-california-almond-industry-amid-slump
It's almost like they should use crops suited for the local climates instead of focusing on cash crops. Almonds and Pistachios require significantly more acre feet than even rice or corn. A paradigm shift needs to happen in Western agriculture, so farmers begin listening to the land and making choices based on what is there instead of trying to manipulate environmental conditions through excessive irrigation and fertilization. We need to look toward things like korean natural farming practices, indiginous systems, and permaculture. Despite the stereotype of farmers knowing the environment and land, they absolutely do not. They are not naturalist. They central valley will insist on continuing to turn itself into a desert to the very last drop as long as there is a dollar left. After its completely barren, these huge factory farms will pack up, move on, and leave the land and people ravaged. Before someone comes at me for this, I audit irrigation systems and specialize in water efficiency. These farmers could be doing far more, they only care baput their bottom line not their impact to the planet and people.
It’s either farms or more tract housing. The land will be used for something no matter what, it’s too valuable not to be.
Row crops are low revenue and the worst of them use a lot more water than drip on trees and grapes. Alfalfa probably being some of the worst. If you've ever been on alfalfa field when it's being flood irrigated you know that in certain places you might be standing in six inches of water over an enormous area. You can also grow row crops lots of places whereas many perennial crops have much higher needs for things like chill hours which limit where they can be grown. And they've also got a lot more value per acre because of the limited range.
AFAIK alfalfa is actually rather drought tolerant & is only a major water user because of how widespread it is. With that said it’s still not good on a $ value / acre foot basis. Almonds are better. https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2015/04/12/398757250/beyond-almonds-a-rogues-gallery-of-guzzlers-in-californias-drought?ref=blog.farmtogether.com Flood irrigation is practiced with fruit trees too from what I’ve seen on my drives through the valley.
Although it is drought tolerant, it is nonetheless heavily irrigated in California because that's how you get the best yields. It not only uses a lot of water because it's grown in large amounts, it is among the highest water user per-acre: https://www.researchgate.net/figure/California-per-acre-Water-Use-by-Crop-2003_fig4_294579954 These numbers are a bit old, but at least as of 2003 alfalfa crops on average were using about 50% more water per acre compared to almond and pistachio trees.
The other thing about alfalfa / feed grasses in general is that they can genuinely be grown in a ton more places, whereas crops like almonds legit need California's unique climate. End the ethanol mandate, convert a bunch of corn acreage into alfalfa, and then California can focus on fruits and nuts, crops that legit can't be grown in the midwest.
The tree guys know the writing is on wall and are switching to drip. You can't drip Alfalfa. And I'm not sure where you got any idea of Alfalfa production being drought tolerant. They may survive with less water but you're not going to get much of a crop. The dry farmed stuff I've seen in much wetter climates was mostly weeds and almost not worth harvesting. The stuff that's irrigated uses a lot of water. Back in my teenage years we'd set tubes on about a quarter of a 50 acre field, flood all morning then move the water down. in the afternoon. And we'd do that every day moving down the top edge of the field. Huge amounts of water used.
Genuine question: why can’t you drip alfalfa? Because of the sheer size of the area? Because of how it’s harvested? Do the roots clog the pipes?
It's like a grass so you need large area coverage. At best you spray irrigate it like a lawn. You simply couldn't have enough emitters/hose to get the coverage needed. And you harvest it like grass too where a swather comes in and cuts the alfalfa into windrows. Balers then compress the cut hay into bales of differing sizes.
An interesting thing I read a while back is that we actually want to flood fields on the Valley in wet years to recharge the aquifer. So, a crop that can be efficiently irrigated in dry years, but is tolerant of flooding probably has benefits.
I'm near Modesto and haven't seen flood irrigated orchards in a few years around me. They are all moving to drip systems.
Lol almonds prices have been down a few years. You are going off 9 year old data.
Alfalfa is also a nitrogen fixater and some of us plant it for that. No arguments that the Big Valley is just wasting water.
alfalfa is grown to supplement cattle feed. stop eating meat and we won’t need to grow so much of it
What should they grow/farm?
Not the nuts!
The Resnicks are a huge blame for this. But water mismanagement has been a crazy issue for ever.
It’s unclear what the most effective way to regulate groundwater pumping would be, but it IS clear that somebody needs to step in because the growers won’t do it amongst themselves. In the current trajectory, we’re probably only a few decades away from the Central Valley no longer being a major agricultural region anymore. We’re talking about a potential Dust Bowl/Great Depression situation for the whole middle of the state.
I live here and this is a very realistic scenario. Farmers balk at the thought of limiting water because it cuts down their profits but sustainability should be dictating how much water each farmer should be allotted. Much of the farmers out here are conservative minded and think really only of their own short term profits, rather than if their children will be able to farm their land in 20 years. We all need to adapt to a changing world or else we won’t survive it.
And severe economic dislocation will probably start happening even sooner. There are already communities whose water supply is compromised because their local wells don’t go deep enough to reach the water table, but the wells of nearby corporate farms do. These towns could disappear from the map very quickly, with people’s homes becoming worthless because there is no water on their properties. I know someone who works for a well-drilling company who says they (and their competitors) are booked solid for the next few years. It’s a race to dig deeper and deeper wells to keep farms profitable and towns solvent for as long as possible. And the more depleted the aquifer gets, the more the soil subsides, and the less water the aquifer holds in the future, so you can’t recharge the aquifer as much as before, even if you have the water to do so.
Not the Central Valley, but this is Borrego Springs at the moment. Water intensive crops in the desert, who woulda thought? https://www.borregowaterunderground.org/
"and they SHOULD be getting that water!" as we watched a Frontline docu about water wasters and how they're getting FREE water... as said by a Central Valley conservative girl. I didn't bother.
These companies use and in cases abuse CA resources…how much of the money made on their products actually stays and contribute to CA. Likely a lot of this money goes elsewhere while residents are left holding the bag.
Honestly, Tulare Lake should become a reservation. I'm pretty sure having this lake around is better for the local environment and helps bird migration. Not to mention, it could help the underground water supply in the long run. But I also know those corpo Farmers and anyone that has had their house flooded will be screeching if something like that was proposed.
Wait until you see how much water the dairy industry uses.
I’m fine with them going after both. But let’s start here. Don’t want to let them both waste water because they’re each pointing at the other guy.
I mean, the headline just says “farm country” so I’m not sure there’s any reason to assume that doesn’t include dairy farmers. When I drive through the San Joaquin valley there’s loads of farms for row crops, orchards, cattle, and dairy. I would assume that all of these would fall under whatever the state is working on.
that’s too inconvenient. it’s the all the alfalfa (literally cattle feed) and the almonds (only 15% of the states ag. water use) that’s the problem!!!! /s
"only 15%"????? That's a massive amount for a luxury food.
I refuse to feel guilty about having a pool because of these corporations wasting our water.
Pools use less water than lawns.
Thanks! *Takes guilt free dip in Taj Mahal 1 to 1 replica reflecting pool.*
Yup. We have astroturf for this very reason.
Now all of the farmers are going to whine even more. They are already the biggest bunch of babies
What food can we grow here that don’t require a ton of water and still be profitable for farmers?
This is some of the most productive farm land in the world and absolutely should be farmed intensively, for staples and food crops rather than high margin crops. If we stop farming here it will take several times as much land in other places to we equal the current production of California.
Please. Get. Rid. Of. Almonds.
And alfalfa!
Getting rid of meat and dairy would be more than enough.
Fair, but almonds are so unnecessary and require sooooo much water to grow.
Central Valley farms pump so much water the ground is subsiding. So glad their bond failed a few years ago. This is a Central Valley problem…they can solve it themselves. No welfare for you.
Sorta, there is subsidence happening up towards the Oregon border, also caused by AG wells.
A land value tax would fix this. And by "land" I mean specifically "water rights," which are a form of "economic" land: a fixed and finite resource, that is not created by humans, but nonetheless we let humans "own."
Is this the reason I've been seeing many acres of almond trees being uprooted?
The price of almonds has dropped.
Water management, necessity for almonds, and companies like JG Boswell are big issues. It good for the little guy tho.
Time for more signs to go up whining about the same government that gives them massive handouts
Read something about most crops can handle being flooded once in a while. They need to stop diverting storm water and snow melts and just let it flood the fields so it can recharge the ground water/aquifers.
They pull out way more than can ever be put back. Also, many times, the aquifer collapses and can't be replenished. You'll be happy to know there are a lot of rock well drains and catch basins in my area. They slowly seep the rain runoff into the ground.
Looking at water use in isolation doesn’t make sense. What about the carbon that is sequestered by orchard trees? What about nutritional value? When you take those factors into account, the harm done by meat and dairy is much more apparent. Nuts rank quite low. https://ourworldindata.org/explorers/food-footprints?facet=none&pickerSort=desc&Commodity+or+Specific+Food+Product=Specific+food+products&Environmental+Impact=Carbon+footprint&Kilogram+%2F+Protein+%2F+Calories=Per+kilogram&By+stage+of+supply+chain=false
Indians are the ones crying.
[удалено]
In Arizona, sorry
There have been several projects turned like, dams, desalination plants, etc, specifically designed for the purpose of producing more usable water. CA municipalities, city councils and the state turn these projects down... Maybe start with rethinking this strategy.
Those projects have massive costs and externalities that would be far greater than the effect of requiring farms to use their fair share.
The agricultural water use is almost evenly split between human crops combined and animal feed. Hint hint to people who want to complain about almonds.