While there have been whispers of skepticism about the Great California Drought of 2009, all would likely agree that California's water woes are complicated. The Wall Street Journal today ran a story outlining the decision process for farmers considering whether they should use the water allocated to them to grow crops, or whether they should sell the water to the state and let their land lie fallow.
Writer Pete Sanders penciled out the equation for Don Bransford, who grows rice on a 700-acre farm north of Sacramento:
- The state is offering $275 per acre foot of water
- Take 100 acres of his farm out of production.
- Sell the water for $90,000
To me, that sounds like a lot of money for leaving one-seventh of a farm unworked. But the implications go far beyond Bransford's farm - think of the laborers who won't be working and the inputs that won't be applied. That's the type of information that UC Davis agricultural economist Richard Howitt has taken into consideration in his calculations about the cost of the drought.
Sanders noted in the Wall Street Journal article that Howitt has determined the drought and resulting water restrictions could cost as much as $1.4 billion in lost income and about 53,000 lost jobs, mostly in the agriculture sector.