Tag Archive for: Agriculture

Water Authority Helps Farmers Boost Water Efficiency

/in , , /by /Fallbrook Village News Mentioned: San Diego County Water Authority
Quoted: San Diego County Water Authority

Agriculture is a rich part of San Diego County’s heritage and a foundational piece of the region’s economy, but it’s not easy to make a go of farming here given the hilly terrain, uneven soils and limited natural water supplies.

That’s where the San Diego County Water Authority comes in. The region’s wholesale water agency has funded more than 2,300 free irrigation system evaluations for farmers on more than 35,000 acres of avocados, citrus, field flowers, and other fruits and ornamentals since 1991.

Full Story

Opinion: Why is Arizona Growing When Groundwater is Shrinking? We’re Finally Having This Debate

/in , /by /AZ Centralby Joanna Allhands

If our water supply is dwindling, why is Arizona still growing?

I get this question almost every time I write about groundwater. Readers say we should be doing a lot more to slow – or even cut off – the construction of new homes and farms.

That’s not likely to happen any time soon. But smart people are diving into the weeds of how we use this finite resource to fuel growth, and that makes me cautiously optimistic.

Full Story

Local Ag Looks to Spotlight its Climate-Friendly Profile

/in , /by /Bakersfield.comby John Cox

The Kern County Farm Bureau issued a “call to action” this week asking local growers and ranchers to participate in a series of upcoming meetings that will influence the role California’s agricultural lands will be expected to play, or continue to play, in fighting climate change. Besides asking members to speak up at a series of online meetings the state is hosting this month, the bureau is collecting data it hopes will illustrate local ag producers’ “climate-conscious nature” with an eye toward ensuring private industry will continue managing its property “on a voluntary basis,” bureau President John C. Moore III said by email.

Full Story

Water Wars Heat Up in California

/in , /by /Courthouse News Serviceby Dustin Manduffie

Water makes the world go ‘round, and a major player in California’s breadbasket doesn’t want to part with more than they have already. The city of Bakersfield, and the Kern County Water Agency are suing nearby water districts over their plan to skim water from Kern County sources for transport to other parts of the state — water that county officials say they need for themselves.

Full Story

Farmers’ Planting Plans Hinge on Water, Pandemic

/in , , /by /AgAlertby Ching Lee

As California farmers weigh decisions on what to plant and how much, lack of rainfall so far this winter has further clouded a 2021 crop outlook already complicated by market uncertainties created by the pandemic.

With current precipitation levels looking even drier than the 2014-15 drought years, Kings County farmer Brian Medeiros said he’s already making decisions about what ground to fallow. He noted that if he does not receive surface-water deliveries and must rely on groundwater all year, it becomes cost-prohibitive to grow many of the field crops that have been core to his business.

Full Story

IID to Finalize Conserved Water Payments to Growers

/in , , /by /The Desert Reviewby Betty Miller

A constant agenda item for the Imperial Irrigation District and local growers and landowners has been the payment of conserved water, the On Farm Efficiency Conservation Program. Part of the Quantitative Settlement Agreement of 2003 is the Valley’s commitment to conserve water to send to urban cities on the coast, which the beneficiaries pay. The conserved water was first done by fallowing, which was never a popular direction, but it was unknown how much of the agreed upon water transfer could be done by growers’ efforts.

Full Story

Opinion: Water Partnerships Between Cities and Farms Would Help Prepare for a Changing Climate

/in , , /by /CalMattersby Alvar Escriva-Bou

San Joaquin Valley farms and Southern California cities are facing different but equally daunting water challenges. For Valley farmers, the requirement to achieve groundwater sustainability in coming years has heightened interest in expanding water supplies to reduce the need to fallow irrigated farmland. For Southern California, falling demands since the early 2000s have reduced water stress during normal and wet years, but a warming climate makes future droughts a major concern.

Full Story

The Ongoing Collapse of the World’s Aquifers

/in , , /by /Wiredby Matt Simon

As California’s economy skyrocketed during the 20th century, its land headed in the opposite direction. A booming agricultural industry in the state’s San Joaquin Valley, combined with punishing droughts, led to the over-extraction of water from aquifers. Like huge, empty water bottles, the aquifers crumpled, a phenomenon geologists call subsidence. By 1970, the land had sunk as much as 28 feet in the valley, with less-than-ideal consequences for the humans and infrastructure above the aquifers.

Full Story

A “Forever” Drought Takes Shape in the West

/in , , /by /Axiosby Jennifer A. Kingson

The Southwest U.S. is mired in an ever-worsening drought, one that has left deer starving in Hawaii, turned parts of the Rio Grande into a wading pool, and set a record in Colorado for the most days of “exceptional drought.”

Full Story

Salton Sea Habitat Project Breaks Ground Near New River Delta

/in , , /by /Palm Springs Desert Sunby Mark Olalde

Construction began this week on a 4,110-acre wetlands project on the Salton Sea’s playa near the mouth of the highly polluted New River, the California Department of Natural Resources announced Wednesday.

Full Story