Editor’s Desk: Climate and water, up close on the farm

By Samuel Fromartz

Dealing with climate change and water availability are the existential challenges of our time. But to really understand how these issues are playing out on the ground, you need to push past the sensational headlines, especially when it comes to agriculture. And we did that in two stories in the past week.

We’ve told you before that food and agriculture globally accounts for upward of 30 percent of greenhouse gas emissions. And we’ve also reported on the hopes of farming, or regenerative agriculture, to sequester those emissions in the ground, in part through the use of cover crops that can blanket otherwise dormant fields in the winter. 

We knew measuring the carbon cycle of cover crops was complicated, but reporter Gabriel Popkin really digs into the science and finds a lot of uncertainty about the ability of farming to achieve this goal of burying carbon in croplands. The story, “A pillar of the climate-smart agriculture movement is on shaky ground,” is an especially pertinent piece at a time when billions of dollars in subsidies for “climate smart” practices have begun flowing to farmers. The question that might arise after reading the piece: Are taxpayers getting what they pay for? 

In the second story, reporter Dan Charles visits the Westlands Water District, the largest irrigation district in the nation, comprising 600,000 acres in the Central Valley of California. Hammered by drought, the district has been fighting and suing opponents for years to get rights to as much water as it could to keep its industrial farming operations humming.

But in the November elections, something changed: A reformist board slate looking for comity rather than conflict was voted in, hoping to explore measures better suited to the water-scarce future. Among them: fallowing some 40 percent of the acreage in one of the richest agricultural regions of the country. His story — “How California’s drought upended a powerful farming district” — was a collaboration of FERN and KQED’s The California Report Magazine. A short version also ran on NPR’s All Things Considered. 

Bonus: Our Back Forty newsletter talked with a researcher who questioned the EU’s reliance on biofuels for its climate goals — and its implications for land use in Europe and the U.S.

These stories underscore the deep reporting FERN does on important and complicated issues. If you care about the way we cover these stories, please consider a year-end donation. It will be doubled up to a $1,000 per gift  thanks to the generous support of FERN donors. So don’t hesitate. Support reporting on the most essential issues in food, agriculture and the environment today.