# Water Woes.



## Vol (Jul 5, 2009)

From Growing TN.

Regards, Mike

http://tennessee.growingamerica.com/features/2018/03/water-woes-hitting-farmers-every-state


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## luke strawwalker (Jul 31, 2014)

Well, the US has a COMPLETELY screwed up and nonsensical "system" and attitudes about water use ANYWAY.

Irrigated farming is expanding out the wazoo, usually in regions LEAST CAPABLE of sustaining it for the long haul-- ie deserts and dry areas. They can produce much higher yields than most rain-watered areas, simply because they can TAILOR irrigation timing and amounts to the crop's specific needs, so that the crops get as much water as they need WHEN they need it, and not too much or too little or too early or too late like the capriciousness of relying on "normal" rainfall, which is completely random (and basically isn't "normal" anyway). The floods of additional production drive down prices, which then makes the lower-yielding but SUSTAINABLE farming in areas relying on rainfall to water crops unprofitable, driving that production toward consolidation and/or out of business. That's what's happening in our area... we're on some of the richest farmland in the world, an area that USED to be the cotton and rice and corn and grain sorghum (even sugarcane decades ago) king of Texas, but now most of it is under pavement, shopping malls, and sprawling suburban subdivisions... what remains is the playground of hobby farmers and ranchettes, and the few remaining BTO's who find ground harder and harder to find as more of the remaining farms are sold to developers as the older generation landlords die off and their kids sell out for a quick buck (most of whom are in their 60's or 70's themselves, or their grandkids).

I picked up a couple 2 inch thick books at the Lubbock Farm Show a decade or so ago from the USDA booth about "farm statistics" that was really an eye-opening read... they were free publications and so I grabbed a couple of them (successive volumes covering different subjects) to peruse... I was amazed at some of the statistics... For instance, back in the 70's when the "irrigation boom" really got started, 90% of the cropland around Lubbock, which is one of the largest cotton growing areas in the US, was dryland production. Lubbock is a dry climate-- they only get about 20 inches of rain a year (desert is classified as anything below 17 inches of rain a year IIRC) and humidity is often in the single digits... At that time, only 10% of the farmland around Lubbock was irrigated. Farmers planted their crops in "skip rows" (two rows 40 inches apart, followed by a 40 inch "skip row" that remained unplanted, with another pair of 40 inch rows next to them, in a repeating pattern across the field). The rows could grow roots out into the "skip" between them to suck the moisture out of that 'skipped row' to make a crop with very low rainfall. By the late 90's when I got these books, the numbers were reversed-- 90% was now under pivots, only 10% was "dryland" crop production (skip row). Land under pivots was planted solid fencerow to fencerow so to speak. All the while, the water district and gubmint types were whining how they're pumping the Ogallala Aquifer dry... I heard it said several times that at the rate they were irrigating and with expanding cities and suburbs, they'd pump the Ogallala dry in 10 years, and it'd take 100 years of normal rainfall going UNUSED to refill it... In the old days, the pivots were using impact sprinkler heads, but it was found that in the heat and extremely low humidity that HALF the water was evaporating into thin air between the time it left the sprinkler head and before it hit the ground... hence the switch to more water-conserving LEPA sprinkler systems, etc. Of course then the issue became high soil surface temperatures leading to excess evaporation, leading to "drag hose" and other "dribbler" type systems to reduce the water exposure to the high surface temperatures... All good measures, but it overlooks a fundamental flaw... Eventually, the WATER RUNS OUT! Large scale irrigated farming relies on TWO basic requirements that are NOT sustainable over the long haul-- cheap available abundant energy (ie cheap petroleum) and cheap readily available abundant water (which is in ever-increasing demand).

SO, while we see "traditional" areas of production (like our area for cotton, corn, and sorghum) that don't rely on irrigation and need only rainfall to produce a good crop *most* years supplanted by a massive move to "industrial scale megafarms" in dry climates (with less bug, weed, and disease problems), forcing the "traditional" areas out of production or into commodity crops (like the massive shift of dairying from "America's Dairyland" (Wisconsin) to places like friggin' CALIFORNIA, which relies TOTALLY on irrigation to even be viable to produce anything AT ALL. Long term, it is NOT sustainable, especially with burgeoning populations all wanting their "Mcmansions" with a verdant lush green lawn in the front yard soaking up tons of sprinkler water, pools in the backyard, and tons of water-using appliances and stuff... and of course competition for water by industry and heavily-irrigation dependent agriculture... And of course huge fancy fountains and other complete wastes of water and energy, and acres and acres of expansive lush golf courses everywhere... Limitless growth based on a finite resource is never a recipe for long-term sustainability. Yes, measures have been taken to make more efficient use of the resource (like irrigating lawns and golf courses with "gray water" and other such techniques) but the simple fact is that such measures are at best a stop-gap, not a solution to the problem.

Irrigation will eventually cause more problems than it solves... I was reading about some town out in the deserts of West Texas that has been irrigating steadily since the end of WWII... it was a small crop and dairy enclave in what was basically hundreds of thousands of square miles of basically desert. There's practically no development due to the remoteness, so lack of water isn't the pressing issue-- it's the inescapable fact that ALL groundwater has *some* amount of salt in it, some more, some less, some nearly none, BUT it is NEVER ZERO amount of salt... their irrigation water was considered quite good and low-salt, and they irrigated for decades, BUT as the water evaporates, it LEAVES THE SALT BEHIND. In their dry climate, evaporation is high and rainfall is low, so more irrigation water is required and there is very little/no rainfall to leach or wash salt from the soil. Over time, the salt levels built up more and more, and the more salt is in the soil, the more irrigation water is required for the crops growing in the saline soils, which leads to a positive feedback loop... the more water they pump on the fields, the faster the salt accumulates... Now they're at the point where irrigation has gotten VERY expensive due to the huge amounts of water required, crops are suffering salt toxicity, and the limits on water availability and profitability due to the expense of pumping SO much water to overcome the salt problem was looming on the horizon to the point they were going broke, and the point that the water would run out was looming...

It was the supreme irony to me how they were WASTING all that water in the Lubbock area-- I told Dad one time, "They're pumping an aquifer dry in ten years that will take a hundred years to recharge if NOBODY was here, to grow stupid 70 cent cotton nobody needs..." Still true today... We were going broke trying to grow 70 cent cotton (same price my Granddad got 40 years before, and it's the same price today!) which is why we switched to cow/calf... As costs rose to the point breakevens were 2-2.5 bales/acre, which is about the most we can hope to make in a PERFECT year here, there simply wasn't any money in it anymore... too much risk, too little reward. With irrigation in a dry climate with less insects and disease issues, and with water "spoon fed" to crops, they can routinely make 2.5-3 bales per acre or more easily... BUT FOR HOW LONG??

Looks like the answer will be "til the water runs out"... THEN WHAT?? I suppose at that point we'll see a giant shift back toward the "natural rainfall" traditional production areas again; course we'll have to buy out the hobby farmers and bulldoze subdivisions to free the land up again... so how that'll work, who knows... It probably won't...

No easy solutions, but it's a "perfect storm" of our own making... short-sightedness and greed, pure and simple... And now that the cows are coming home to roost (LOL) folks don't like it...

Later! OL J R


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