Farmers need certainty.
Stephanie Smallhouse, president of the Arizona Department of Agriculture, said: Arizona Water Innovation Initiativea $40 million initiative to increase the state’s water resilience.
Farmers in the state are having trouble making long-term plans, she told the crowd. around it for a long time.
Arizona needs farmers.and we should say so
This is a common sentiment, even among farmers with higher water rights than the big cities in central Arizona.
Many people believe that they have a gigantic goal on their backs.
To be fair, they’re not wrong.
Many Arizona residents believe that desert farming is at best fungible and at worst criminal, especially in areas where water is scarce. a large part of the state).
All Hands:Competition for water in rural areas can intensify.and ugly
Meanwhile, a significant number of water leaders have presented a united front in the Colorado River negotiations, requiring farmers to participate in order to set reasonable groundwater rules for groundwater use in bare rural areas. I quietly admit that there is
But few people say so publicly.
What happens when these three points match?
Granted, I’m not sure that anything you’ll read about will provide the level of certainty farmers want.
But if people outside of the farming industry were willing to say, it might help develop the trust we need to move forward.
farmers use a lot of watereven if most people already use it efficiently.
This is because plants need a lot of water to grow. We need more water than our homes and many businesses.
That doesn’t mean all farming is a waste of our precious resources. Producing food locally benefits the state and country. It offers far more benefits than relying on other states and countries to fill your plate.
can’t save all acresbut some are worth saving.
know. This is dangerous protection and no one wants to get into the business of crowning winners or losers.
However, Yuma’s winter vegetables, which can only be grown in Japan at that time, have value. If the country wants a salad, it needs Yuma’s winter vegetables.
So are the Wilcox and Sonoita wine regions, which cannot be replicated anywhere else. And the dairy — yes, Pinal County’s very infamous dairy farm. Without the Phoenix and Tucson subways, we wouldn’t have enough affordable milk.
This does not mean that Arizona dairies, wineries, or vegetable farms can maintain the status quo with respect to water use. Nor does it mean cutting off all other agricultural uses to maintain it.
But it’s worth trying to preserve what only Arizona can produce.
And for what we cannot save?
I need a migration planSome acres will have to be permanently removed from production.
And what’s left should use far less water.
Arizona needs a plan that allows farmers to permanently shift some of their least productive land to other uses.
And continued funding is needed not only for critical water-saving research, but also for training and equipment to move these innovations from the lab to the field.
There is uncertainty. It takes time to rethink the way we farm.
But there is no time to waste.
to reach All Hands joanna.allhands@arizonarepublic.com. on Twitter: @joanna allhands.
If you like this content (or don’t like it – no judgement), Subscribe to get more?
