Debate grows over parched California’s thirsty crops

LOS ANGELES — It is simply 9 within the morning in jap Riverside County’s Palo Verde Valley and farmer Jack Seiler’s workday is already half completed.   

He stopped to scrutinize a bushy shrub of cotton that he’s cultivating in Blythe. 

“Hopefully, these will stick and make a ball,” he stated as he considered and rotated the plant in his hand.  

On this desert farming neighborhood on the Arizona border, daytime temperatures routinely exceed 100 levels and that is no drawback for these crops. 

“Cotton likes the warmth,” Seiler remarked.  

 One other crop that may thrive in excessive warmth? Afalfa. On his farm, Seiler grows 1000’s of acres of it. As soon as matured, the crop is mowed, baled and ready for transport. He pointed to a loaded truck headed for a dairy in Bakersfield.

“It is a scorching commodity,” Seiler stated. “They’re coming for it.”

Alfalfa is what dairy cows eat and California is large in dairy manufacturing. Dairy merchandise and milk are priceless commodities, pulling in near $7.5 billion per yr however, in a drought, many individuals query whether or not crops like alfalfa ought to be grown right here. 

UC Riverside economist Chris Thornberg is one such critic. 

“The very last thing you do is give water to farmers to waste it by rising stuff within the desert that ought to by no means be grown, ”  Thornberg stated. 

Thornberg’s gripe with Seiler’s farm and others right here is the quantity of water they use.

Seiler’s farm borders the Colorado River. His household has owned the land since 1967 and it got here with the precise to make use of as a lot river water as wanted to develop any crop he chooses. 

Bart Fisher can also be an alfalfa grower in Blythe. 

“My grandfather settled right here 104 years in the past at a time when the federal authorities wished to feed and populate the West,” Fisher stated.  

He defined how his forefathers constructed a collection of irrigation canals and staked a authorized declare on Colorado River water. 

“In Western water legislation, you might have ‘first in use, first in proper,’” Fisher stated.

Imperial and Palo Verde Valley farmers have been first to put declare to the river’s water, which means they’re final to be impacted by water restrictions.  

Fisher and Seiler promote the majority of the alfalfa hay they develop to dairy farms in California and Arizona.  

“If you open the following cup of yogurt, a few of that in there got here from alfalfa,” Seiler stated.  

That type of argument does not transfer Dr. Thornberg.   

“The concept that we have to develop hay within the desert to feed livestock is nonsensical,” Thornberg stated.

Thornberg factors out how 16 % of the alfalfa grown in California is shipped all the way in which to Saudi Arabia to feed the dairy cattle in that desert realm. The irony? Saudi Arabia banned rising alfalfa due to water shortages there. 

“I can’t agree that we must always permit Saudi Arabian cows and horses the next deference to our personal surroundings,”  Thornberg stated. 

Saudi cows apart, as much as 80 % of all California water is presently used for agriculture. 

Given California’s megadrought, Thornberg stated that is an excessive amount of.

“We over allocate this extremely scarce useful resource on the idea of 100-year-old contracts,” Thornberg famous. 

Thornberg’s answer is to develop these crops in cooler, wetter states and ship the water saved to Southern California cities.

That mind-set didn’t sit effectively with the farmers.

“Oh, you’ll be able to say, ‘Simply develop the hay in Arkansas.’ However what about all of the dairies in California?”  Fisher requested. 

“Nicely, we’re first-priority proper right here and we’re hoping that, , meaning one thing,” Seiler added. 

Thornberg shouldn’t be persuaded.  

“You owned a hunk of land for 50 years? OK, I purchased a hunk of land in Los Angeles and — rattling it! — I feel I ought to be capable of develop grass in my entrance yard. How are my rights any much less necessary than your rights?” he requested.

Gerri Fixed contributed to this report