February 11, 2009
Richard Rominger, Michael Dimock
San Francisco Chronicle
California's unfolding drought - now three years running - may prove to be the worst in recorded history. Farms have begun to fail, communities to crumble, food prices to rise and more people are going hungry. How we respond to the drought will offer us a template of how to respond to global climate change.
Photo: California's agricultural heartland is facing the loss of millions of dollars and hundreds of jobs as drought and court-ordered water cutbacks affect almonds and other crops. (Marcio Jose Sanchez / AP)
The drought is a national crisis because California produces 50 percent of the nation's fruits, nuts and vegetables, and a majority of the nation's salad, strawberries and premium wine grapes. State and federal agencies that deliver water to farms up and down the Great Central Valley are preparing to cut deliveries by 85 percent to 100 percent. Coastal communities may begin rationing programs within weeks. Even with 50 percent increases in ground-water pumping, which is clearly not sustainable, the Central Valley alone will lose up to 40,000 jobs and $1.5 billion in income, according to a UC Davis agricultural economist Richard Howitt.
Even more disturbing is that rising emotion over water is sparking hostility. Last Thursday in Fresno, a representative of the California Water Impact Network told a television reporter during a debate that saving farmworkers' jobs is a mistake because they are the "least educated people in America ... they turn to lives of crime, they go on welfare, go into drug trafficking ...." This is this blatantly racist, and evokes images of Europe in the 1930s and '40s.
Drought or hurricanes are beyond human ability to stop. Thus, the human challenge is to offer effective response. Neither the federal nor state government can mitigate the impacts of this drought without cooperation and balanced consideration of human health, ecological and economic consequences. All levels of government, business and community must engage the challenge and leave behind 30 years of unresolved water wars.
So, we ask: Will our leaders maintain a long-term vision as they communicate tough decisions? Will government provide a flexible framework for competing interests to resolve conflict? Despite the pressures, will agricultural, environmental and urban interests think beyond the immediate to arrive at agreements that lead to sustainable supply management?
Our answers to these questions lead us to recommend four actions:
First, President Obama and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger should form a federal-state drought response team that includes new leadership not tied to inflexible organizations and tired thinking about water supply, and that embraces the fact that climate change will set the limits of any future water allocation formulas.
Second, the president and governor should direct that team to reframe the discussion:
a) Food production in California is a national security priority and simply outsourcing our food supply is not in our national interest.
b) Responses must emerge from a primary respect for ecological systems and those who steward the resources within those systems to water and feed us.
c) Immediate and long-term responses are required to deal with the impacts and root causes of climate change and drought.
d) Urban and rural communities and people of different means must share the burdens that will be required.
Third, the secretaries of the U.S. departments of Agriculture and Interior, Tom Vilsack and Ken Salazar, should ensure that their top deputies are tied directly to California's farmers and environmental organizations, because without trusted Californians at the top in Washington, drought response will be much less effective.
By taking these suggestions, the state, nation and communities could minimize the pain caused by this drought and evolve methods for responding to climate change.
Richard Rominger is the former secretary of the California Department of Food and Agriculture. Michael R. Dimock is president of Roots of Change, a collaborative supporting development of a sustainable food system in California.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/02/10/EDKB15RJ1M.DTL