It’s increasingly clear that the lessons we’re learning from California’s drought are not those we expected. Far from the doom of so much of the rhetoric, Californians are adapting to scarcity with remarkable aplomb. The latest data point, from Phillip Reese and Dale Kasler of the Sacramento Bee, may be the most interesting yet: California’s …
Continue reading ‘Despite drought, California agriculture adds 30,000 jobs’ »
Interesting point from the Young Farmers Coalition about our West: The majority of young farmers and ranchers in this region have never farmed in non-drought conditions.
Chicago Tribune, June 3, 1934:
In his keynote at last week’s Law of the Colorado River conference in Las Vegas, Metropolitan Water District General Manager Jeff Kightlinger pointed out something that’s not gotten a lot of attention in discussions of California’s drought – the extraordinary decline in that state’s acreage of cotton. Cotton’s gotten a bad rap in irrigation circles, because …
Continue reading ‘The decline in California’s cotton acreage’ »
There’s a letter to the editor in the latest High Country News (it’s in the paper edition, can’t link yet) that repeats a California water myth that’s just flat wrong – the California Supergiant Alfalfa Water Use Export Myth. Alfalfa alone is using more water than all the other water uses combined, and most of …
All the cool kids seem to be buying up real estate in the Palo Verde Irrigation District. First it was the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, which has upped its stake in the Colorado River farming valley to 22,000 acres. Now comes news that Almarai, a dairy company, bought 1,790 acres to grow food …
Continue reading ‘Note to self: invest my next $31.8 million in Palo Verde real estate’ »
In response to my cattle v. people post earlier today, Tom Swetnam asked if I had data for sheep: @jfleck I have been looking for a graph like that! Do you have sheep numbers? Multiple times cows in early decades, I think. — Tom Swetnam (@Tom_Swetnam) January 10, 2016 USDA’s data only go back …
Continue reading ‘New Mexico’s population history, now with added sheeply goodness’ »
Lauren Villagran’s story in this morning’s Albuquerque Journal about the impact of the Boxing Day blizzard on New Mexico dairies is a reminder of the single most important trend in New Mexico agriculture in the last few decades – the remarkable growth of the state’s dairy industry. Some numbers on that below, but it reminded me …
Continue reading ‘New Mexico population (cattle v. people) through history’ »
Despite drought, the value of California cropland land has risen 5.4 percent this year, according to the latest U.S. Department of Agriculture survey data. No doubt my economist friends can help me here with an explanation of what this says about how the market is pricing questions about uncertainty, water supply and risk. Looks like …
Continue reading ‘Another indicator of the resilience of California agriculture’ »