California farmers made $53.5 billion in sales in 2014, even as Governor Jerry Brown declared a drought emergency and mandated urban water cuts for 2015. The record sales figures, which represent the most recent data available, were released in a new report by the state agriculture department.
Farmers have made up for the lack of rain by digging deeper wells and capitalizing on the demand for almonds in China, reports the San Diego Union-Tribune. California almond production has doubled since the start of this century, surpassing grapes, the paper said, and almond prices have shot up from $2.40 a pound in 2012 to $5 last year.
Environmentalists and community residents argue that the report is yet more proof that farmers are taking more than their fair share of the state’s water. Brown asked towns and cities to lower their water use by 20 percent in 2014, before making a 25 percent cut mandatory in 2015. Some urban residents say they have sacrificed all they can, to the point of hauling water after their taps stopped running, and that farmers have gotten off to easily. Across the state, 2,520 household wells have gone dry, says the San Diego Union-Tribune. Meanwhile, environmentalists claim that water-heavy agriculture is behind the collapse of California’s Chinook salmon.
Meanwhile, Sen. Dianne Feinstein is making her third effort in two years to resolve dispute over scarce water, with a 184-page bill that she described as one of the most difficult in her career. “It eases limits on water transfers south of the Delta, but does not mandate specific pumping levels,” says McClatchy. “It authorizes $1.3 billion for desalination, water recycling, storage and grants.”
Rep. Jared Huffman, a California Democrat, pointed to the tug-of-war between Republicans who want more water for agriculture and Democrats who want to preserve the environmentally sensitive Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. A congressional compromise is “highly unlikely,” Huffman told McClatchy. Feinstein says her bill offers a balanced approach that all sides can support. McClatchy pointed to one factor that may influence the legislative handing of the water bill – snowpack in the Sierra Nevada is 105 percent of normal. “While drought conditions persist, the infectious sense of political urgency may be lessened,” said McClatchy.