Pay the Farmers Now

My colleagues and I have just published a new study in Nature Sustainability that provides a detailed overview of water use and its implications in the US, with a focus on the West.

Unsurprisingly, media coverage of this story is focusing on the gee-whiz statistics (and yes, they are eye-popping) and the negative impacts associated with water over-use in the West. But my co-authors and I don’t want you to miss the real punchline of this story: There is a clear, immediately-available, well-proven option available to stave off catastrophic water crises in the West, it’s quite affordable, and there are thousands of farmers and ranchers ready and willing to implement it —>> pay farmers to temporarily fallow some portion of their farmland.

I know the farmers are ready because I’ve spent time with them on the ground. They aren’t expecting to get rich off this water crisis, they just want to be properly compensated for being solution providers. But obstructionists are confusing them with doomsday stories and warning of mythological boogeymen, saying they’ll lose their water rights or destroy their communities. It just ain’t so. In this fleeting moment, farmers are in the driver’s seat and can call the shots that will protect them and guide their destinies. But if they let the emerging water shortage crises explode, they will lose that control.

For the sake of rural western landscapes, families and communities, I hope they will seize this opportunity while they have it.

OK, here’s the stats:

• One-third of all water consumed in the western U.S. goes to irrigate cattle-feed crops, primarily alfalfa and grass hay; in the Colorado River basin, it’s 55%.

Image: Irrigated hay fields along the Bighorn River in Montana. Photo by Brian Richter

• Beef and dairy production is the leading driver of water scarcity in the West. In the Colorado River basin, it is the biggest water use by far and therefore the leading cause of plummeting reservoir levels and imminent water shortages.
• During droughts, one-fourth of all western rivers are nearly dried up by water consumption for human purposes, and irrigation of cattle feeds is the largest water user in more than half of these heavily depleted rivers.
• The drying of rivers due to cattle-feed irrigation has greatly elevated the risk of extinction for more than 50 fish species and has adversely impacted many others.
• Los Angeles, Portland, Denver, San Francisco, and Seattle are the leading consumption centers for beef produced with western river water.
• We found that the voluntary, temporary fallowing of cattle-feed crops could substantially lower the risk of water shortages across the West. Farmers volunteering to be compensated in return for fallowing can expect enhanced income by “growing water” alongside their crop production. To alleviate water scarcity In the Colorado River basin, if the cost of compensating farmers were to be shared among the 40 million people using river water, the estimated cost would be $10-15 per person annually.

In our paper we acknowledge that fallowing isn’t the only way to save water on irrigated farms. We should also invest in other water-saving measures including installation of improved irrigation equipment, rebuilding soil health, and switching to less water-intensive crops. But those alternatives and transitions all require a good bit of time and investment of capital. In the meantime, we need to bring our rivers back to life, and temporary fallowing is the best way to do that.

Image: Cattle grazing along the North Platte River in Wyoming. Photo by Brian Richter