Water and Agriculture in California
Is C-WIN opposed to commercial agriculture?
C-WIN supports agriculture. It’s an important part of the California economy. More than that, it is foundational to civilization. We all need to eat, and a modern society requires a modern and productive agricultural sector.
But we oppose unsustainable agriculture. How do we define that term? It’s agriculture that degrades the land; that places corporate profits above the needs of society; that produces nonessential crops that do not contribute to food security; and most critically in California, that uses a disproportionate amount of water, harming ratepayers and the environment.
How much of California’s water is used by agriculture?
In total, agriculture consumes about 34 million acre-feet of water a year. [1] This is from all sources, including groundwater. Urban use—including residential, commercial and industrial consumption—accounts for 8 million acre-feet. [2]
Agriculture uses 80% of the developed water in California [3] and contributes about 2.5% to the state GDP. [4] Most of California’s developed water is transported via the State Water Project (SWP) and the federal Central Valley Project (CVP). In an average year, the SWP delivers about 1 million acre-feet to San Joaquin Valley growers; [5] the CVP annually delivers about 7 million acre-feet to Sacramento Valley and San Joaquin Valley cropland. [6] Eight million acre-feet is enough to serve all other water use in the state—household, industrial, commercial—for 5 years.
Who pays for these water deliveries?
Most of California’s agricultural state and federal water contractors are large corporate enterprises that receive the water at below-market rates; this is how they are subsidized by taxpayers and ratepayers. In 2022, for example, the agricultural Central California Irrigation District in the San Joaquin Valley paid $21.79 per acre-foot of water. By contrast, the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California—which serves 19 million ratepayers in 26 south state cities—paid $799 an acre-foot in the same year. [7]
Are large government water projects the only source of water for California growers?
No. California’s corporate growers also pump vast quantities of groundwater for their crops.
Unfortunately, many of California’s aquifers are now in overdraft status, causing widespread land subsidence and other problems. In some portions of the San Joaquin Valley, land has subsided by 40 feet or more. [8] The 2014 Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA) was designed to ameliorate this crisis, and it contains some laudable remedies for groundwater basins in overdraft—but implementation is slow, enforcement is spotty, and the full measure of the law will not be applied until the early 2040s. [9] Many groundwater basins remain at critical status.
Almonds are often cited as an example of a crop that is not “sustainable.” Why is this?
It’s not almonds per se—it’s the quantity of the acreage and the location of most of the plantings. Almonds are a water-intensive crop, and acreage skyrocketed from 640,000 acres to 1,640,000 acres between 2004 and 2021. [10] Most of the increase in plantings were in the sere and selenium-tainted lands of the western San Joaquin Valley, which is served almost exclusively by the CVP. While acreages have fallen slightly in recent years, orchards continue to go in on soils that are essentially toxic and irrigated with taxpayer-subsidized water. Bottom line: almonds use between 4.7 to 5.5 million acre-feet of water a year [11] —enough to supply between 15 million to 17 million households. Almonds cannot be considered an essential or even staple food commodity—they are a luxury crop, a fact reflected in their markets. About 70% of California’s almonds are exported overseas. [12]
Further, almonds are mostly irrigated with government project water that is drawn from the relatively saline Sacramento/San Joaquin Delta. Over time, this water impregnates soils with heavy concentrations of salt that must be flushed away with even more water. This “drain water” is heavily infused with the toxic selenium that is common in western San Joaquin Valley soils, and it eventually finds its way to the San Joaquin River and the Bay/Delta, poisoning people, fish and wildlife.
San Joaquin Valley almond culture, in sum, is an exemplar of “unsustainable” farming.
What other California crops could be considered unsustainable?
San Joaquin Valley pistachios are also expanding in acreage and share the same environmental and social deficits as almonds. San Joaquin Valley wine grapes are another crop that requires heavy irrigation and yields high profits with low social return and widespread environmental harm. The valley produces heavy yields of low-quality wine grapes, with most reduced to concentrate that is used to augment the fermentation of cheap wines and produce other alcoholic beverages, including distillates. [13]
Given these definitions and examples of “unsustainable agriculture,” what could be considered “sustainable” farming?
Sustainable agriculture is farming that accommodates natural limitations in water supply and the related needs of ratepayers, local ecologies, and fisheries.
Almond culture in the northern Sacramento Valley—where water is relatively abundant—could be considered sustainable, provided SGMA is fully enforced on groundwater pumping. Similarly, alternative crop selection could make currently unsustainable agriculture more sustainable. For example, some growers are experimenting with value-added drought-tolerant crops: Woolf Farms, an extremely large grower in the western San Joaquin Valley, is planting drought-resistant agave with an eye toward proprietary tequila and mescal brands. [14] Substituting annual crops such as processing tomatoes for permanent nut orchards is likewise a step in the right direction. Annual crops typically require less water than permanent orchard plantings; in the western San Joaquin Valley, processing tomatoes need about 25 inches of water annually, [15] while almonds require 48 to 52 inches. [16] Land dedicated to annual crops can also be fallowed quickly and temporarily during drought.
Dry farming is also a reasonable option. Dry-farmed almonds were once extensively cultivated in Central California, and they were highly esteemed for their stellar quality. [17] Yields are reduced for dry-farmed nuts, but the high product demand and reduced costs of water, irrigation infrastructure and labor can help compensate for smaller crops. Dry-farmed grain and unirrigated pasturage were once mainstay crops for the Central Valley prior to the completion of the large state and federal water transfer projects, and are worth considering again as climate change accelerates, California’s population grows, and water supplies continue to tighten.
Finally, the definition of “farming” can be expanded to encompass more than crops or livestock. The permanent retirement of impaired lands already is occurring on a large scale in the western San Joaquin Valley, with much of the acreage converted to solar arrays. [18] When combined with rapidly evolving and efficient storage technology, such solar “farms” contribute to both a carbon-neutral energy supply and a stable agricultural sector.
What else can be done to make California’s agricultural sector more sustainable?
Making agriculture sustainable in California is a matter of scale as well as crop choice. The greatest impacts to water supplies, the environment, and ratepayer equity result from the irrigation of vast acreages in the Central Valley. As noted, some of this land is coming out of production due to salt intrusion, environmental legal challenges, and water shortages. But reductions in cultivated acreages must be accelerated, particularly in the impaired lands of the western San Joaquin Valley.
Other actions should include:
Rapid and full implementation of SGMA. The reduced pumping dictated by the act will require additional fallowing of impaired land – up to 500,000 acres by the early 2040s. Local water agencies can help by prioritizing groundwater basin recharge.
Improving irrigation systems and techniques to reduce usage. This process already is underway, but must be accelerated.
Upgrading conveyance infrastructure to minimize leakage.
Making water markets both transparent and flexible. [19]
While such changes would serve the public good, they also would be disruptive to growers and farmworkers. The agriculture community should not assume the full financial burden for shifting to sustainable models, given the broad social benefits. C-WIN strongly supports financial incentives for growers in their transition to sustainable farming, and the creation of retraining and job placement programs for farmworkers.
[1] https://water.ca.gov/Programs/Water-Use-And-Efficiency/Agricultural-Water-Use-Efficiency
[2] https://norcalwater.org/2014/03/24/understanding-water-use-in-california-and-the-sacramento-valley/
[3] https://www.foodandwaterwatch.org/2022/02/24/california-water/
[4] https://economic-impact-of-ag.uada.edu/california/#:~:text=That%20same%20year%2C%20the%20value,percent%20of%20total%20state%20GDP.
[5] https://water.ca.gov/-/media/DWR-Website/Web-Pages/News/Files/FINAL-12-14-2023---The-Economy-of-the-State-Water-Project.pdf
[6] https://mavensnotebook.com/explainer-where-does-californias-water-come-from/central-valley-project/
[7] https://www.nrdc.org/bio/kate-poole/how-californias-water-rights-system-gouges-you-and-me
[8] https://www.usgs.gov/centers/land-subsidence-in-california/science/land-subsidence-san-joaquin-valley
[9] https://www.water-alternatives.org/index.php/blog/sgma
[10] https://www.nass.usda.gov/Statistics_by_State/California/Publications/Specialty_and_Other_Releases/Almond/Acreage/202204almac.pdf
[11] https://www.c-win.org/cwin-water-blog/2024/9/23/california-almond-water-usage-updated
[12] https://www.capradio.org/articles/2022/05/09/a-billion-pounds-of-california-almonds-could-be-stuck-in-warehouses-instead-of-being-exported/
[13] https://s.giannini.ucop.edu/uploads/pub/2021/01/21/chapter_8_grapewine_production_2020_cRMPBgj.pdf
[14] https://www.ediblecommunities.com/edible-stories/in-the-age-of-megadrought-is-agave-the-crop-of-the-future-in-the-west/
[15] https://ipm.ucanr.edu/agriculture/tomato/irrigation-of-processing-tomatoes/#gsc.tab=0
[16] https://cestanislaus.ucanr.edu/newsletters/The_Scoop_on_Fruits_and_Nuts93071.pdf
[17] https://www.nationalgeographic.com/culture/article/can-dry-farming-lead-the-way-out-of-drought-
[18] https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2022-02-10/skelton-solar-farming-san-joaquin-valley
[19] https://www.ppic.org/publication/water-use-in-californias-agriculture/#:~:text=Sustainable%20farm%20water%20management%20will,acres%20by%20the%20early%202040s.