The Secret Behind the Agriculture Industry

By Maggie Alves

For the past five years, California has been in a state of severe drought. On January 17th, 2014, Governor Jerry Brown declared the drought a state of emergency. This statewide affair turned thousands of heads and demanded immediate action. However, despite images and articles on the news, whenever a sink is turned on, water pours out the same as always. This disconnection prevents many Californians from seeing and properly addressing the issue. According to the United States Environmental Protection Agency, the average American uses 100 gallons of water per day. Water is a necessity, yet something we constantly take for granted. If California does not make serious adjustments, the situation will only decline.  

California is the agricultural powerhouse of the United States, with over 200 unique crops. The 76,400 farms and ranches generated approximately $54 billion from their products in 2014. According to the California Department of Food and Agriculture, in the same year almonds alone generated 5.9 billion dollars, making it California's second most valued commodity. The importance of this industry is no question, however the profits don’t come without a cost. Crops grown in California, such as almonds, require an extensive amount of water. Approximately 70-80% of California’s water goes to agriculture. Wasteful irrigation techniques and other flawed systems mean that out of the millions of gallons put in, only a fraction are used. With the large majority of water being isolated to the agriculture industry, many researchers and politicians are realizing that the most effective approach to conserve water may come there.

With the rise of drought awareness, new strides have been made to assist the cause. This includes new bills introduced and passed, water restrictions imposed, new technologies developed, and communities modifying their routines. Whether it is installing a system to collect and reuse grey water, or shortening showers, every bit helps. The city of Sacramento has imposed a strict watering schedule, permitting residents to water their lawns only on specific days and times. Communities across California have developed notable ways to conserve and have severely cut down their water use. However, even if everyone did their part, only a small amount of water would be saved.

When examining the most effective ways to conserve, there is one place that severely needs attention: the agriculture industry. Growing crops that require less water, using more precise irrigation or alternative methods such as collecting rainwater, recycling runoff or treating wastewater are all methods that have been proposed for farmers. Using water flow meters can help measure and control the amount of water being used in irrigation. Implementing new methods can be expensive, but government subsidies for these technologies would provide economic incentives for the farmers and there is no question that they are worth it in the long run. Many farmers have watering schedules that are not dependent on weather, so adjusting watering to fit natural precipitation will also decrease water use. Farmers must be willing to make both small and large adjustments if they want pull California out of this fragile state.

Perhaps the most shocking statistics about the industry come from a surprising place: meat. According to the United States Geological Survey, in one beef (¼ pound) burger, 460 gallons of water are used. That is over 1,800 gallons per pound of beef. Although sources vary in number, all report the average male cow weighs around 1,700 lbs. Through simple calculations, it can be determined that if every part of the cow is used for meat, over three million gallons of water would be used per cow. The average American eats 167 pounds of meat a year. There are approximately 320 million people in the United States. That calculates to 53 billion pounds of meat consumed each year. To provide all that meat, 96 trillion gallons of water is used, which is ten times the amount of megabytes of mobile data everyone in the United States used last year put together.     

Water is an asset that is extremely underpriced. Those 460 gallons of water is equal to two dollars at your local McDonald’s. Since water is so cheap, people don’t think twice about using it. When you leave the sink running while brushing your teeth, you don’t think you are literally pouring money down the drain, because you barely are. The same goes for farmers. Farmers use billions of gallons a year with only a relatively small price to pay. If the price of water were to rise, people’s attention to their water use would surge. This raise in cost would affect the places that use the most water, namely, agriculture. If the reality of an ever-shrinking water supply is left alone, eventually the true cost of water will emerge.

You may wonder, if solutions to many of the issues of the drought are already defined, why have they not been done already? The answer isn’t simple. Farmers make major profit off many of the crops/products that use a great deal of water. Tomatoes, almonds and bananas are some examples of crops that require significantly more water than crops such as olives or grapes. However, the demand for tomatoes isn’t decreasing, and farmers make over 1.5 billion a year growing them, so why stop? Agriculture is clearly a major asset, and getting farmers to change their ways is both difficult and expensive.

This historic California drought is not an issue that can fix itself. The agriculture industry is at the heart of the problem, but is also the majority of the solution. When the drought is discussed, this industry is often left out of conversation. It is important to address the easier, more personal fixes, but even more important to address where most of our water is going. California’s water will continue to disappear if great efforts are not made to save water through agriculture. There is no doubt; the key solutions lie within the agriculture industry.