We grow rice and walnuts and pretty much know how much water needs to grow the crop. It is dependent on weather because it uses more if it is hot, and less if it is mild. Growing food is much like feeding a baby.
If you do not feed the child it will become sick and may die. A plant needs water to survive, but needs the right amount of water to produce the food we depend on. On our farm, the only water we use is what the plant uses and the rest goes to other farms below us as we share this resource many times over. If we cut this water back, the food production stops and our only alternative is to cut our acreage and use the remaining ground to grow a crop.This means less food for the people dependent on it.We supply food to all the regions of the world. This includes our large customers like Canada,Mexico,and the Pacific Rim.
The other side of this dilemma is the falling fish population.We know what will happen when we cut back on a child’s food supply, but no one knows for sure what is what is causing the fish decline. Throwing more water at the fish may not reverse this trend, but we know what it will do to food production. It may be time to test this theory, we may need more
storage and use this for the fish.
