Producing with Pride

For several years now, I have been contributing content to various ag publications. I suppose it goes back to the Ag Teacher that remains deep within my psyche. I still have this aching desire to promote, defend and preserve the ag industry and more specifically our beneficial use of water. Perhaps the time has come for me to let this cat out of the bag and share some of these insights with my own community, so from time to time, you may find my articles included in the pages of our local newspaper.

This initial piece is a reprint from the Winter 2024 issue of Coastal Grower. I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it.

In early November, several thousand irrigation professionals from around the world gathered to attend the Irrigation Association's annual Show and Education Week. As always, it was a great opportunity to attend classes and listen to presentations, while networking with industry specialists, friends and colleagues. Attendees gathered new information, learned of innovative ideas, got a pulse on the status of the industry and gained insights into the coming season.

Personally, I came away with an increased sense of optimism for the coming 2025 season and a greater desire to share our message. Afterall, if we Aggies don't tell our story, who will?

There is no doubt that producers throughout the United States, especially in the West, are facing pressure to reduce water usage and increase efficiency. In desert regions of California, like Imperial County, producers have already begun to voluntarily participate in programs designed to compensate growers for reducing irrigated production acres.

The goal is to decrease the impact on our stressed surface and groundwater supplies during the most critical times of the year. It is certainly not a perfect solution, but it is much better than fallowing land without any form of reparation to the grower, as we consistently hear of these impending reductions in irrigated acres.

Having been involved in the Ag water industry for over 40 years, I often find myself pondering this water scarcity dilemma. How do we continue to feed a hungry world? Can we maximize efficiency and production while simultaneously minimizing acreage? For example, with California producing approximately 90 percent of the U.S. supply of leafy greens in addition to over 400 other crops, cutting back on those acres without negatively affecting consumers could prove problematic.

Pondering this dilemma while standing in our kitchen on a rainy afternoon last spring, I had an epiphany of sorts. As I glanced from shelf to shelf, the critical role of water in the production of fruits, vegetables, nuts, bread and other staples that filled our pantry became overwhelmingly obvious.

My wife thought I had lost my mind as I began pulling items off our shelves and out of the refrigerator, placing them on the counter of our kitchen island. Once I explained what I was doing, she dug right in, helping me lay out a virtual cornucopia of delectables. Even on that random day, there were more goods than we could fit on the countertop.

We primarily selected fresh items produced from the crops that we serviced through our water treatment solutions at Ag Water Chemical. As we placed each item on the counter, it was fun to visualize the bounty. It was even more remarkable to realize that this harvest, much of which had been produced by that liquid gold known as West Coast Water, was now covering our Colorado kitchen counter.

Glancing back outside, watching the rainwater puddle and thinking "Spring showers brings May flowers" I knew that these cloud bursts did so much more. They fill our soil profiles, streams, rivers and reservoirs, even underground aquifers. Since these rains in the West are often few and far between, it reminds us of the significance that sensible water usage has on all of us and how important it is that we continue to spread that message.

Perhaps part of the overall water sustainability solution will be addressed by new technologies, as increased production costs, along with labor and water scarcity, force producers to take a much deeper dive into automation. From automated planting, weeding and spraying options, to cloud-capable flow meters and real-time soil moisture monitors, production becomes more efficient, and data driven.

No longer must we speculate about yield variations across a particular field or farm, as real-time yield monitoring tells us exactly where our best and worst production acres are, so that we can target planting, fertilizer and soil amendment rates based on specific field variables. Some systems can even irrigate with variable rate flow control, a process that will certainly become more common and affordable in time.

So, where do we go from here? We must continue to develop ways to share our important story, giving consumers a deeper understanding of the soil, water and crop production cycles that impact us all. Agricultural entities have got to take a seat at the water policy table or as some have suggested, we will end up on the menu.

Ultimately, the influence that water has on our food security is paramount. It is imperative that we Aggies continue to develop innovative ways to become better at what we do through conservation, innovation and cooperation ... sharing our important story everywhere we go.