personal connections to lawmakers,
and threat of legal action to secure
water for irrigating their vast or-
chards, planted across much of the
San Joaquin Valley.
Fishing industry advocates and
groups like Natural Resources De-
fense Council, Restore the Delta and
Defenders of Wildlife continually
warn of impending extinction for
salmon and other native fishes unless
agricultural producers relinquish
some of the water control. Reverting
from orchards to annual row crops
would help, they say.
Woolf, the Madera County farm-
er, is sensitive to the matter of water
supply and questions whether agri-
culture is using too much. “The same
amount of water is now being used for
more purposes around the state, and
everything, quite frankly, has to take
a pruning,” she says, adding that her
farm has “considerably cut back on
irrigated acreage.”
Growing row crops would ease
pressure on water supply, but farm-
ers need to consider economics, and
most annual plantings — vegetables,
melons, tomatoes and cotton, among
others — aren’t worth enough, Woolf
says. “What you grow has to be able to
pay for your land,” she says.
Matoian believes pistachios’ toler-
ance of extreme drought justifies their
presence in arid regions. “When you
consider all the possible crops that are
currently planted or could be plant-
ed in water-deficient areas,” he says,
“pistachios make much sense since
they are extremely drought tolerant,
and can do fairly well with limited
amounts of water.”
Though his work is cited as a reason
to grow pistachios, Goldhamer ques-
tions the suitability of the crop, as well
as almonds, as the agricultural focus
of the San Joaquin Valley. “They’re
very suitable crops if you want to make
money,” he says.
But Goldhamer objects to the com-
mon industry rhetoric that nut farmers
need water to feed Californians. “You
often hear that it’s a question of being
in favor of fish and the environment,
or of growing food,” he says. “But the
reality is, these (nut crops) aren’t staple
food items that we need to survive.
They’re not wheat or corn, which are
mostly grown in the Midwest and with-
out irrigation.” He calls almonds and
pistachios luxury crops that are grown
primarily for export and consume
tremendous volumes of water.
“So we’re essentially exporting bil-
lions of gallons of water to the Far East
with these crops,” Goldhamer says. “It’s
a reason to question whether we should
be using all this water to grow them.”
Alastair Bland is a freelance journalist
whose work also appears in NPR’s food
blog The Salt, Smithsonian.com and
Yale Environment 360.
Jacob Katz and John??l photo
caption here.
Helping Salmon Project Funders:
Thank you to UC Davis and California Trout for
their technical expertise and dedication to help raise
salmon in Sacramento Valley rice fields. Hopefully
this research, facilitated by the California Rice
Commission and supported by our program sponsors,
will provide the impetus for more rice farms to raise
salmon to help restore salmon populations. Other valued contributing sponsors:
FIND OUT MORE:
Salmon.CalRice.org
May 2020 | comstocksmag.com
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