When people talk about conserving water in California, it’s always about turning off your yard sprinklers, taking shorter showers or shaving without the water running. We fret about watering golf courses and lawns in the suburbs. In presentations at schools, at Rotary clubs and on public service announcements, we’re continually told that, as dwellers in a semi-arid state, we must conserve water. All true. But what we don’t hear about is conservation on the farm. And that’s where we need it most.
Most urban Californians have no idea that agriculture uses about four times as much water as cities. Farmers know it, but they don’t talk about it much. All cities and suburbs combined in California use between 8 million to 9 million acre feet a year. Agriculture uses 34 million acre feet. An acre foot is how the West measures big amounts of water. It’s an acre one foot deep, or 325,851.4 gallons.
The largest water projects in California are dedicated to agriculture. The federal Central Valley Project delivers 7 million acre-feet of water a year to grow thirsty cotton, rice, alfalfa and other crops. The All-American Canal in Imperial County delivers at least 4.4 million acre-feet, of which 3.8 million acre-feet go to ag. By contrast, the notorious Los Angeles Aqueduct of Owens Valley/Chinatown fame provides only around 200,000 acre feet a year to Los Angeles. The total that city uses is about 650,000 acre feet. Alfalfa – hay — uses between 4 million to 5.5 million acre feet a year.
Cities have been successful in conservation in recent years. But conservation on the farm is much harder because nothing grows in California if you don’t water it. The amount of field crops, vegetables, fruits and nuts we produce directly correlates to how much water we use. Remember, like California cities, there is nothing natural about California agriculture. The Central Valley was a vast marshy place with only seasonal rainfall that we drained and now use to grow water-intensive crops. The Imperial Valley is one of the hottest places in the country with almost no rainfall at all. Without water taken from rivers and poured on the dirt, there would be no California ag.
Don’t get me wrong, California’s rural-based agriculture is very important. The Golden State is the nation’s breadbasket. But California’s urban-based manufacturing is even more important. In 2006, the California gross domestic product for crop and animal production was $15 billion. For manufacturing, it was $172 billion. California needs all of its industries to survive and thrive. So when we talk about conservation, let’s start the conversation with the biggest user – agriculture. After that, we can talk about three-minute showers.