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California is experiencing the worst drought in its history, and the effects are being felt nationwide. Thus water issues have taken center stage in much of our reporting and the nation's.As the New York Times says, "Water has long been a precious resource in California, the subject of battles pitting farmer against city-dweller and northern communities against southern ones; books and movies have been made about its scarcity and plunder. Water is central to the state’s identity and economy, and a symbol of how wealth and ingenuity have tamed nature ..."As we continue through a fourth year of extreme drought conditions, you'll find all of our reporting on the related issues (and that of NPR and other member stations) in this centralized place.

More California Farmland Likely Fallowed in 2015

Andrew Nixon
/
Capital Public Radio

 

Some people claim California's mandatory water reductions let the agriculture industry "off the hook." But farmers don’t see it that way.

The agriculture industry uses 80 percent of the state’s water supply but is not facing any restrictions. But farmers say they've sustained cutbacks in state and federal water allotments the past two years, and will again this year. 

Chris Scheuring is an environmental lawyer with the California Farm Bureau Federation. His family farms walnuts and almonds in Yolo County.

"California farmers have already borne the brunt of the current drought cycle, two, three years now,” Scheuring said. “So asking farmers to cut back 25 percent from ditches that are already empty is kind of a mathematical impossibility." 

 

Scheuring said it's likely more farmland will be fallowed this year.  

 

"I don't think we're losing farms permanently on a wholesale basis yet, but we may be getting to that point now,” he said. “That's not to say that we haven't had a huge amount of fallowing — we did. We fallowed something like 500,000 acres last year and the whispers I'm hearing this year is it could be up to twice that amount."

 

Scheuring says California's agricultural industry has become more efficient in its water use the last few decades. But planning now for water scarcity in the future is critical. 

This story was produced by Capital Public Radio. 

 

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