Environmental preservation continues to take precedence over agricultural sustainability in California. Water rights and assessments are issues California farmers and ranchers are being challenged with today.
Jack Lavers, a California rancher, explains through the years there has been a shift in water allocation since environmental concerns became a factor around the 1970s. He discussed the water issues, as well as other challenges facing California ranchers, on AgriTalk with Chip Flory.
Original state and federal water projects moved water from Northern to Southern California. These enabled agricultural expansion in the Central Valley and initially satisfied farmers and urban populations. According to Lavers, farmers only get 25% of the water today while environmental groups receive approximately half.
“They give half the water now to the environmental groups, and the other half is then split between the farms and the people — and that really becomes the issue,” he says. “Now we have this big push happening because they want to bring back fish to these rivers, and so we’re actually removing dams, and that is a very, very big issue.”
Removing the dams will eliminate irrigation.
“You’re going to see a lot of this ground that’s been irrigated for 100 years disappear — and have no value — so we can have some fish,” he explains.
New Assessment
Lavers says one of the new challenges facing agriculture today in California is a new Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA) assessment.
“This is actually assessed on all rural ground — they call them the white areas,” Lavers explains. “This stems from the SGMA, which is the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act, that our state passed, which is just insane in itself, but they assessed $1.50 per acre assessment on your ground.”
He says they have justified the assessment because, “these guys are pulling all this water out of the ground to farm.”
He adds, “They didn’t just do it on the farmers. They did it on livestock guys that are grazing ground. Well, that adds up really quickly. If you have a 2,000-acre ranch where you’re grazing your cattle now, you’re paying an extra $2,000 a year. Right now, that’s one of your steers is gone right there off the top, just to pay for an assessment that you don’t even use.”
Wildfires Affect Grazing Land
Lavers also discussed how wildfires continue to pose significant threats to California ranching. He says the Gifford fire is causing significant damage to ranchers, burning more than 122,000 acres and forcing some ranchers to lose everything.
As the cattle producers face reduced grazing lands due to the fires, he says progress has been made working with the U.S. Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management opening up grazing allotments that they have closed in the past. They are also working with California Department of Fish and Wildlife to allow grazing on ground it had purchased.
“We’re having a little bit of success with that, so we’re making progress,” he summarizes.
To learn more about the challenges facing California ranchers and farmers today, be sure to listen to the full conversation between Flory and Lavers. From devastating wildfires and water allocation issues to regulatory pressures and environmental constraints, the California agricultural community continues to demonstrate resilience and adaptability.
