California, water and food security

This column by A.G. Kawamura, California agriculture secretary, published in The San Francisco Chronicle raises an issue that is rarely considered by the general public: California's unpredictable water deliveries are threatening food security. In fact, Kawamura said 80,000 acres have been lost this year alone. From the piece:

At a time when people are deeply concerned about our dependence on imported oil, we should also be concerned about increasing our state's dependence on imported food. In fact, our ability to feed our state could be seriously threatened by problems such as a long-term drought, the state's aging water delivery and supply system, and court-ordered water supply cuts.

When people talk about food security, it's normally a social justice topic at international conferences on hunger and famine. But it's a term that we're hearing more in California as population growth, along with land use and water policies, puts more pressure on this state's agricultural industry. Rather than referencing worries about global food shortages, food security for Californians is about whether our state can continue to be the nation's top food producer.

One of the major threats to the state's farming industry is our lack of water. California's drought, combined with court-ordered cuts in water deliveries, is threatening our food production.

Because of the water shortage, growers are cutting back on production, fallowing land and stumping trees. The drought has cost the state more than $250 million in lost plantings and 80,000 acres of crops this year alone. And that doesn't include the huge amount of idle farmland that hasn't been planted in the past few years because of an unpredictable water supply.

While the drought seriously complicates matters, our problems will not be solved with just one wet winter. The comprehensive, bipartisan plan proposed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sen. Dianne Feinstein will provide the water necessary to meet California's needs during wet and dry years alike.

Critics like to say that California farmers are wasting water and that if farmers would just conserve water, we wouldn't need to build more delivery systems. That is far from the truth.

California farmers have always practiced innovative water resource management, while producing food that feeds the state and the world. Over the past four decades, the amount of water used on California farms is relatively consistent, while crop production has increased more than 85 percent. Water conservation is not inexpensive, often requiring investment in new equipment or technology. In fact, farmers in the San Joaquin Valley invested more than $500 million in high-efficiency irrigation systems from 2004 to 2006.

Furthermore, water use on California's farms is enormously efficient. It's not used just once, but as many as eight times.

It's fashionable today to talk about eating locally. In fact, with the amount of food grown near the Bay Area - a recent study reported that 20 billion pounds of food, valued at $10 billion, is produced within a 100-mile radius of San Francisco - it's not hard to buy locally grown food.

Feeding our families locally grown food makes sense in many ways. First, we know that farmers in California adhere to the strictest environmental and food safety standards in the world. Second, for people who worry about the effect that industrial shipping and transportation have on the climate, purchasing California's produce, dairy, meat and wine means reducing your family's carbon footprint.

We Californians have good reason to be proud of our state's agricultural bounty. Anyone who has lived in the Midwest or Eastern parts of the nation knows just how blessed California is to have fresh fruit and vegetables year around. But as our farmers are squeezed by issues such as a declining water supply, rising energy prices and demands for residential development, it becomes harder and harder for California farmers to stay in business. And that means that residents may see their choices narrow as the variety of crops decreases.

Will farmers be forced to change their crops because of a lack of water? Will there be sufficient water so we can choose what to grow?

California's historically strong agricultural industry is facing a tough future. Water is one of the biggest problems confronting our farmers today. In the end, California's water problems can only be solved through a comprehensive program that balances conservation with an improvement in the state's water delivery and supply system.

A.G. Kawamura is the secretary of the California Department of Food and Agriculture. Kawamura and his family have been growing and shipping produce in Southern California for three generations.