The future of agricultural water

John Maday, Managing Editor, Drovers CattleNetwork  |  Updated: 02/06/2013

TAMPA, Fla. – Our nation needs agriculture and agriculture needs water. Agriculture, Genho says, shaped and sustained our past, provides abundant food, fuel and fiber today and will determine our future. And, he stresses, agricultural productivity in the United States plays a key role in economic and social stability across the globe. “What happens in a cornfield in Iowa influences food supplies in Pakistan,” he says. When U.S. agricultural production drops, high food prices create unrest and instability overseas, such as during last year’s “Arab Spring.” Instability in the Middle East leads to higher energy prices, which result in higher production costs for U.S. farmers and reductions in food production – a vicious cycle………… Meanwhile, a list of factors will influence future water supplies for agriculture.

Many critical water facilities are more than 50 years old with no redundancy or reserve capacity.  Federal policy does not provide funds to maintain or replace federal facilities and local economies don’t have the funds.

To address the issue, Genho stresses that farmers, ranchers and others directly involved in water and land management must take a leadership role, even though they comprise a small minority of the overall population. The agricultural community must demand science-based policy development, create opportunities for private investment, increase certainty of water rights and permits and replace federal regulatory reach with basin-specific policies.  To Read More.....

My Take - Since the EPA and the Wildlife bureaucrats view all water as their personal property, and the federal government has spent untold sums on money on failed energy schemes, idiotic research, grant money to promote things that are not only of no value to the nation, but are in reality detrimental to the nation, are we to assume this is a story of failure of choice by the politicians, bureaucrats and the greenies who they support with their policies?  In this meanwhile things continue to crumble.  They must truly be insane!