Tag Archive for: Agriculture

How Can California Solve Its Water Woes? By Flooding Its Best Farmland.

The land of the Central Valley works hard. Here in the heart of California, in the most productive farming region in the United States, almost every square inch of land has been razed, planted, and shaped to support large-scale agriculture. The valley produces almonds, walnuts, pistachios, olives, cherries, beans, eggs, milk, beef, melons, pumpkins, sweet potatoes, tomatoes, and garlic.

Report: Water Risks Threaten U.S. Agriculture

U.S. agriculture is at risk from climatic extremes and groundwater over-extraction, says a new report from the Environmental Defense Fund.

In California, Farmers Test a Method to Sink More Water into Underground Stores

In recent decades, as water has grown increasingly precious, Californians have tried countless ways to find more of it and make it last longer, including covering agricultural canals with solar panels to prevent evaporation, building costly desalination plants and pulling out tracts of water-hungry grass.

Californians Bet Farming Agave for Booze Holds Key to Weathering Drought, Groundwater Limits

Leo Ortega started growing spiky blue agave plants on the arid hillsides around his Southern California home because his wife liked the way they looked.

A decade later, his property is now dotted with thousands of what he and others hope is a promising new crop for the state following years of punishing drought and a push to scale back on groundwater pumping.

Tensions Are Bubbling Up at Thirsty Arizona Alfalfa Farms as Foreign Firms Exploit Unregulated Water

A blanket of bright green alfalfa spreads across western Arizona’s McMullen Valley, ringed by rolling mountains and warmed by the hot desert sun.

 

Feds Are Flooding California’s Water Market

WATER PRICE LINE RISING: Who could forget last May, when Arizona, California and Nevada made a three-year pact to conserve water from the Colorado River? Many thought it couldn’t be done, but with Lake Mead reservoir levels at a historic low, and the federal government poised to wrest control of the process, the states agreed to conserve 10 percent of their water — nearly a billion gallons — between now and 2026.

Floodwaters On Farms Help Boost Aquifers

The historically wet winter early this year motivated greater adoption of a water management strategy known as flood-managed aquifer recharge, or flood-MAR, in which excess flood flows are diverted onto farmland to boost depleted groundwater aquifers.

The 20 Farming Families Who Use More Water From the Colorado River Than Some Western States

As the Colorado River snakes through the deserts of the Southwest United States, its water is diverted to cities, states, tribes and farmers along its course.

Agriculture has always been the largest use of the Colorado River, and California’s Imperial Irrigation District, established in 1911, has among the earliest claims and by far the largest claim to the river.

Opinion: Millions Share the Discontent That Fueled Rainbow and Fallbrook Vote For a Water Divorce

In modern American politics, voters at the local and state level are asked to weigh in all the time on ballot measures involving public policy. What’s strikingly consistent across the nation is just how contrary voters are and how ready they are to object to anything. In San Diego, for a local example, an utterly mundane 2016 measure to change the City Charter’s language on municipal bonds so that it conformed with the state Constitution and changes in state law drew the objections of 21 percent of voters. Very lopsided results are extremely rare.

The Historic Claims That Put a Few California Farming Families First in Line for Colorado River Water

Craig Elmore’s family history is the stuff of Westerns. His grandfather, John Elmore, a poor son of a Missouri preacher, arrived in California’s Imperial Valley in 1908 and dug ditches to deliver water to homesteaders.