Group warns water crisis to cause steep ag losses
Agriculture in the San Joaquin Valley may be able to blunt a sharp decline in the years ahead if policymakers and the industry can come together on a series of strategies for reducing demand for irrigation while also increasing water supply, according to a new assessment from a prominent policy organization.
The report this month from the Public Policy Institute of California examined the biggest challenge confronting the state’s ag industry — a one-fifth decline in annual water supply expected by 2040 because of groundwater sustainability measures and climate change — then recommended softening the impact by loosening water-trading rules, incentivizing farmland reuse and investing in storage, including groundwater recharge.
If consensus cannot be found to address the coming water shortfall, the study predicted, 900,000 acres of farmland will be fallowed at a cost of 50,000 jobs and a 2.3 percent drop in the valley’s economic output.
Neither the gist of the PPIC’s findings nor its suggestions are entirely new, but the renewal of their urgency resonates with a local industry anxious for progress.
“We’ve talked enough. Now we need action,” President Ian LeMay of the California Fresh Fruit Association said Friday. “The end result of inaction, which is what got us to this place, sadly, will be … massive fallowing of acreage, tens of thousands of jobs lost and, quite frankly, irreparable economic damage to the San Joaquin Valley.”
There are potential drawbacks to the measures the PPIC proposed, and the policy brief went through them before suggesting ways to guard against unintended consequences.
Unregulated water trading risks harming water users and ecosystems, it said, and so there would need to be a transparent, well-run market to protect small communities’ drinking water wells. New caps on groundwater pumping may be in order, the report says.
Dairy and beef producers could be hurt, too, the study said, as water flows away from feed crops like alfalfa toward specialty, perennial crops like grapes and pistachios. The PPIC concluded communities affected by that may require what it termed transitional support.
At best, PPIC estimated, half a million acres will come out of production by 2040 — 11 percent of the San Joaquin Valley’s total as of 2018. That much farmland going idle will increase dust and decrease air quality, exacerbate weeds, invite pests and degrade soils. Or not, if opportunities open in the areas of solar development, water-limited agriculture and habitat restoration.
“This will require both careful planning and financial and regulatory incentives,” said the report by Alvar Escriva-Bou, Ellen Hanak, Spencer Cole and Josué Medellín-Azuara, with research support from Annabelle Rosser. “Progress will be hindered if these lands become a liability to growers.”
Ag represents 14 percent of the valley’s economic output, 17 percent of its employment (340,000 people) and 19 percent of its total income, the report estimated.
By itself, making surface and groundwater trading rules more flexible won’t increase supply, but it could cut the economic costs of adjusting to less water by one-third, while limiting employment losses to perhaps 44 percent and reducing the impact on gross economic output by as much as half, according to the study.
It said expanding the supply of irrigation water through investment in new storage would cut the total land that will have to be fallowed by between 25 percent and 45 percent.
The policy brief threw in a hopeful note: If farming efficiency gains continue at even half the rate they have increased during the past 40 years, then half the expected economic costs would be avoided by 2040.
Disagreement was the caveat.
“Achieving successful outcomes will require unprecedented coordination and cooperation among local and regional parties,” the report said, “with strong partnership and support from state and federal agencies.”
Local farmland appraiser and broker Michael G. “Mike” Ming expressed confidence water trading can be done in a fair way that maximizes production across the valley.
“I think that that’s something that a lot of our water districts in the valley are looking at,” he said. “I just think that everybody kind of is in their corner and I think there should be an equitable water-trading platform.”
He added local farmers are heavily invested in increasing irrigation efficiency and look forward to increased state and federal flows to local water banks.
LeMay viewed the PPIC report as continuing a conversation about where California finds itself on water policy. He said investments need to be made on water infrastructure and that permitting needs to be expedited on the $5.2 billion Sites Reservoir water storage project in Northern California.
Progress also needs to be made on water recycling in urban areas, LeMay said, as well as decisions on the future of water through the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta.
He said state leadership needs to treat the situation as the crisis it is.