Farmers in a California region created a system to address water scarcity; it could be a national conservation model

Pajaro Valley lost its precious strawberry crops
40 years ago. (Photo by Nathan Weyland, NYT)

As groundwater becomes more challenging to source, farmers are pressured to find ways to supply and reduce water for valuable crops. A community along a 10-mile stretch of California's central coast known as Pajaro Valley may have some water preservation answers for the rest of the country, reports Soumya Karlamangla of The New York Times. "Farmers must pay for the precious resource through a system that creates an incentive to conserve water, and that also raises revenue that goes toward recycling water to use on crops. . . .The system has reduced groundwater usage in the valley by 20 percent".

Pajaro Valley farmers designed the system, which experts believe could serve as a national water conservation model. Coral Davenport of The New York Times has covered the unique system including new supporting research. Karlamangla interviewed Davenport for her insights. A brief version of their Q&A is below.

Wikipedia map

Why are people looking to the Pajaro Valley right now? For one, Pajaro Valley already faced its groundwater debacle "when the groundwater levels fell so low that its famous strawberry crops were destroyed by saltwater intrusion. . . . Farmers there banded together and came up with a solution that isn't perfect and has cost a lot of money and legal battles, but in the long run has saved the aquifer and the agricultural economy of the region. So a lot of experts and executives say it could offer a road map to avert the coming crises elsewhere."

Why hasn't this model spread more? "Politics. The politics of compelling American farmers to pay a tax on groundwater — a resource that has been free basically forever — are incredibly difficult. One thing I learned from reporting this story is that many farmers don't even want the government to put groundwater meters on their land just to measure the amount that they're using. Overcoming these deeply held political views is a huge challenge."

What consequences could charging for water in more places have on farmers and shoppers? "Experts said that pricing groundwater for agriculture across the country could profoundly change American agriculture. In some places, adding a charge for water would increase the cost of the crops and thus of the food or textiles produced by the crops — or it could cause farmers to change what they grow."

Read Davenport's full story here.

Read the case study here.