While the levels of water in streams and reservoirs around
the state decline, anxiety grows in California farmers about whether or not
they will be able to continue operations. According to the Wall
Street Journal, hundreds of thousands of acres of farmland lie fallow at a
cost of millions of dollars in lost product.
A proposed solution has come up in the House of
Representatives which would, if passed, temporarily suspend protections to the
endangered Delta Smelt, a tiny fish which places big demands on the California
water supply. Currently the Endangered Species Act protects the habitat of the
delta smelt by preventing pumping water out of reservoirs at a level which
would prevent the fish from spawning. One farmer, according to National
Public Radio, estimates that “twenty to thirty percent” of the water in
California is reserved for the fish.
What the press and, seemingly, Congress is not discussing,
however, is why the semi-arid Central and Southern California are being used
for agriculture in the first place. An agricultural industry has been built on
the back of government-subsidized water and irrigation projects masking the
comparative disadvantage of agriculture in the region. Many have discussed how
we need to prioritize water for impoverished California farmers; however, they
fail to notice that the very same practice has a tendency to artificially lower
prices, contributing to the poverty of Central and South American farmers.
--Clark Miller
