It’s in the headlines – water shortages, droughts – happening across the globe and here in the U.S. And it’s starting conversations over water rights, laws and the value of water resources. It could change what production looks like out West.
Brian Richter is the president of Sustainable Waters and a senior fellow for World Wildlife Fund. He was asked to speak at the recent PDPW Dairy Insight Summit because of his knowledge on how water issues impact the ag economy.
Water scarcity — when there’s not enough water to meet needs — is happening in a third of water sources around the planet. The problem is that if a water source is overused, it could dry up. That’s what’s happening in the Western part of the U.S.
“That’s for two primary reasons: one is that we have a lot less rainfall and snowfall out in the West. And the other is that most of the farming in the Western United States requires us to put supplemental water onto the farm crops… irrigation,” Richter explains. “Irrigation in the Western United States accounts for about 86 percent of all the total water use in the West.”
This results in “scarcity pricing,” he says, which is when the value of water skyrockets the price for a water right, land or new home. Richter adds there has not been much economic impact on the price of food… yet. But he predicts the prices will go up.
“Unfortunately, some of the places that are experiencing some of the most severe water shortages right now are the places that are among the most important in terms of our food supply here in the United States and for exporting to other countries,” he says. “Places like the lower Colorado River where 90 percent of the country’s leafy vegetables are supplied during the winter time. And the central valley of California, which supplies us with everything from fruits to nuts to all kinds of different vegetables.”
Richter predicts more land will be fallowed — allowing the farm to rest and not growing anything on it. Local governments are starting to pay farmers to fallow their fields temporarily to save water. He says it’s a good idea for an emergency, but it’s not a good long-term solution. He says a better long-term solution would be changing the crop grown on the land to one that uses less water but provides the same revenue for the farmer.
“My opinion is that we’re going to see a lot of transformation in the crops that are being grown in the Western United States … and perhaps down in the Southeast as well,” he says.
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