Plenty of water: Farmers, ranchers breathe sigh of relief
Water, water everywhere, and this year, there should be enough for all the water users in the Colorado River basin. Lake levels are coming up with snow melt, the drought has been declared over in California and the farmers and ranchers are breathing sighs of relief.
The lower Colorado River irrigation districts continue to document the efficient use of water by their water users. We are producing more food with less water. Telling the success story of Yuma County agriculture is an ongoing effort, so it is gratifying to see one of the west’s major sources of news to publish a positive article. The High Country News (HCN) is a nonprofit 501(c)(3) independent media organization that covers the important issues and stories that define the American west. The following excerpts from an opinion piece by Robert Glennon and Simon Stanley was published in the March 30, 2017 issue.
“In his 1986 classic, Cadillac Desert, Marc Reisner portrayed agriculture in the Yuma, Ariz. region, as a poster child for what’s wrong with how water is used in the west. He sketched a situation that would have amused the cartoonist Rube Goldberg: The Bureau of Reclamation built a hugely expensive desalination plant in the desert, and the water it produced cost $300 an acrefoot, so that irrigators could continue to grow federally subsidized surplus crops that cost them $3.50 an acre-foot. Reisner suggested a far cheaper solution: buy out the farmers and retire the land from agriculture. He also laid down a challenge asking whether more efficient irrigation could ever make sense in such an arid region. HCN investigated that question by making several trips to Yuma over the past 18 months and what HCN learned might surprise you: HCN thinks that Yuma’s farmers have been unfairly portrayed and are getting a bum rap.”
The article, which everyone should read, (Technology is cropping up in our lettuce fields, High Country News), goes on to extol the technology used by Yuma County growers to optimize water use and identified many of the efficient farming practices used. HCN was most impressed with the basin leveled fields, use of state of the art GPS technology, and use of sprinklers for germination irrigations. Food safety technology developed and practiced by growers also received kudos. The final paragraph of the article stated: “On balance, HCN thinks that Yuma’s farmers have risen to Reisner’s challenge. They raise highend crops as efficiently as they can, and as the earth’s population increases from 7 to 9 billion by mid-century, the changes made by Yuma agriculture offer guidance to other farmers — no matter where they work.”
It is so refreshing that this news organization actually took the time to come to Yuma numerous times, get to know many of the growers and learn what is actually happening in Yuma County agriculture. Almost monthly there are meetings of ‘water experts’ from all over the United States and the world, holding discussions on ‘what to do about’ water use in agriculture and the Colorado River watershed. Most of them have never been to Yuma and believe everything that is written in the ‘scientific papers.’ Recently ‘deficit irrigation,’ irrigating with less water than the plant needs to thrive and produce maximum yields, is a hot topic. ‘Fallowing,’ which means leaving the ground lay idle for months at a time with a crop on it, including proposed summer fallowing of perennial crops (alfalfa) is being proposed. It is obvious to anyone who has farmed in the desert that these are not particularly practical suggestions. Fallowing in particular in our desert soils does more damage to the soils than good by causing a loss of soil quality and increase of surface salts in the soil. Repairing the damage of fallowing is an expensive and time consuming process. There comes a point of diminishing returns in all businesses where the cost of becoming more efficient is greater than the returns produced. This is true of irrigation water management as well. Yuma County growers have almost maxed out the benefits of existing, practical technology to become more water efficient, resulting in on-farm water application efficiencies of greater than 75 percent. Urban areas and other agricultural producers need to step up to the plate and take on the challenge of better water conservation in their communities and stop looking to the Colorado River as a cure to their poor water management.
Bobbi Stevenson-McDermott is a soil and water conservationist. She can be reached at rjsm09@msn.com.