Agriculture is by far the biggest user of water in arid western states?

Question

including Colorado, Arizona, and California. The populations of these states are growing, and there is an ongoing conflcit between cities and farms regions over water. To ensure water supplies for urban growth, cities arepurchasingwater rights from farmers. This is often the least expensive way for a city to obtain more water, and it is possible for some farmers to make more money selling water rights than growing crops. What are the possible consequences of theis trend. Is this the best way to allocate water for all concerned? why or why not?

Answer 1

HAVE YOU EVER HEARD OF DRY LAND CROPS!!! If a farmer sells his water rights he is only getting a one time lump some for the water. Where as if he where to farm with those irrigated acres he would get higher crop yields making more money for years and years. If you where to drive through the western states you would see mostly dry land crops. Farmers are not using up the worlds water supply.

The possible consequences of this trend are stupid city people using up toooo much water for their own stupid pleasures. ie. swimming pools, water parks

Answer 2

There is not enough water on the entire west coast to serve all of the people living out there unless they figure out how to drink seawater.

Answer 3

You have asked a very timely question.  I was just doing research on agricultural water useage.  I'm a farmer, and I live in Idaho.

I grew up in Western Washington State.  Water there came from the sky.  I've only been in Idaho for a few short years.  It's brand new to me to farm with irrigation water, pumped from the Snake River Aquifer.

Here's a link on how water much agricultural water is used in the top four agricultural water use states.

http://www.uidaho.edu/wq/wqpubs/cis887.h...

The top four states break down this way:

California uses 22.3% of the NATIONS agricultural water

Idaho uses 16.3% of the NATIONS agriculutral water

Colorado uses 8.9% of the NATIONS agricultural water

Texas uses 5.9% of the NATIONS agricultural water

The Nations other 46 states use the remaining 46.6% of the NATIONS agricultural water.

Why did I capitalize the word "nations?"  Because I wanted to be sure people understood I was talking about the water used for agriculture by the ENTIRE nation, not just that state.

If you start breaking it down state by state,  how much of the water the state uses on agriculture, the numbers can be a real eye opener.

Hands down, Idaho uses more water for agricultural use than any other state.  Of the water Idaho uses, 97% of it (!!!!!) is used for agricultural use.

2% of Idaho's water goes for mining and industrial use, and only a mear 1% is used for domestic & commercial.

I've been doing water research, because the trend around here is quiet frankly very, very scary.

Cities are buying up water-rights from farmland.  I'm seeing miles, and miles of once productive and fertile farmland that is now nothing but accumulating sagebrush and try tinder waiting for a rangefire.

Most of these purchases of water-rights (at least in my area of Idaho) leave the person still owning the land, but not the water.  This means the water from the deep irregation wells, and the surface water rights, and the water that falls from the sky (rain).

These farmers cannot even graze cattle on the land anymore.  They are not even allowed to run a herd of goats over the land to provide weed control, and rangefire control (by eating the ammasing fodder).

I live in the very heartland of potato country here in Idaho.  We also grow sugar beets, alfalfa hay, and wheat as some of our main agricultural crops.  Most of our alfalfa hay is shipped to California, to feed dairy cows there.  Our sugar beets are shipped to California, and made into sugar.  Our wheat and potatoes are shipping out all over our nation, and other corners of the world.

Most U.S. citizens have no idea, but the majority of our sugar now comes from sugar beets, not sugar cane.  

So when we loose this fertile farmland, the price of our milk and cheese, sugar, breads, potatoes, all go up in price, because farmers are producing that much less.

When we produce less of our nations food, we import more of it from other countries.  This of course uses us the worlds oil supply more quickly, due to the transporting of goods.

The average American has no idea how much this is SERRIOUSLY weakening us as a Nation.  The U.S. is becoming more and more dependant on foods from other Nations.  What exactly do we do, if that other Nation has a famine, and decides not to export?  Current example would be India not exporting any of their rice this year.

What do we do if that Nation has a war, and it can no longer even grow, much less export food?  The U.S.A. is slowly setting itself up to see actual famine (where U.S. citizens are actually starving to death).  Most people believe this could never happen.  Yet most people are so far removed from agriculture they don't really have a clue as to how the food get's to their table.  

I've honestly heard statements like this (many times), "Well a famine wouldn't affect me, we buy our food at the grocery store."

People honestly don't understand that the food they purchase in the grocery store, came from a farm.

For the person who stated "ever heard of dryland farming," I have a statement.  Yes, I've certainly heard about it, and seen it.  It usually occurs near hills and mountains here that accumulate rainclouds and get extra rainfall.  Dryland farming is not happening out here in the heart of potato country.  Even wheat, the traditional dryland crop, is irregated.  Without the water, NOTHING but sagebrush, and prickly pear cactus would grow.  

AP is correct that the farmer is only going to get a one time payment for those water-rights....but when the farmer walks away with a few million, do you think they honestly care?

Now to toss yet another monkey wrench into the whole works, we need to look at power price increases.  I've lived in Idaho for four years.  Every year the price of power has gone up.  Most of these farms are now irregated with huge pivot pipes.  The pump the well water, and run a pivoting irregation system (usually a huge circle) to water the crops.  They use a LOT of electricity over the course of a growing season.  Farmers get this electricty at a very much reduced rate from the average homeowner, or businesss rate.

Even so, the cost of the farmer's electricty has gone up.  Idaho also has some of the cheapest electricity in the nation, since the majority of our electric still comes from hydro power.  Despite all of this, the cost of power to the farmer has now reached the point where the farmer can make more money selling the electricty he would have used back to the power company, than he would farming.  The only thing keeping a lot of farmers farming this year is the high prices all food crops are currently bringing in.  

If prices were still low however, you'd see even more farmers selling their electricity back to the power companies, and leasing out their water rights.  Some farmers have taken to leasing their water rights to cities, for special projects.

This is NOT the best way to allocate water rights.  It is leading the U.S. down a very dangerous road.  In the end, it will come back to haunt people if there is no more farmland and water to grow their food.

~Garnet

Homesteading/Farming over 20 years

Answer 4

The cities need to do a lot to ensure the quality of their effluent is good enough to be used for irrigation. We can not allow sewage water to become  contaminated, because we still need the irrigation.

With so much priority for urban use, it may be that we have to redirect urban growth to places where there is more water. The alternative is to pump in water that is going into the oceans, be that for irrigation or urban reclamation.

Now the project is enormous, but the Missouri river could be pumped to the south west if the price of water gets high enough. Raising the price of water rights high enough to make a major project viable may be a service in disguise.

Answer 5

farmers in arid areas depend largely on irrigation for their water needs. comercial farming requires even more water thereby taking more water than the cities. the issue of water rights is a matter of legislation and can only be resolved through legislation. unfortunately, the beneficiaries are ready to prevent or surpress the enactment of such legislation.

there is need for realocation of water rights but how? there must be deliberate effort to change legislation to favour this redistribution from the haves to the have nots

water is a big problem worldwide and require alot more attention than it is getting now from governments all over the world.