A Colorado River Replenishment Project Could Dry Up Alfalfa Fields. And Many Farmers Are in Favor of It

A project to help shore up the dwindling Colorado River by cutting off water to alfalfa fields in California’s crop-rich Imperial Valley is gaining support from the farmers who grow it.

The Imperial Irrigation District, the largest user of water from the 1,450-mile (2,334-kilometer) river, has offered to pay farmers to stop irrigating forage crops, including alfalfa, for up to 60 days during the height of the summer heat. Although farmers often balk at the idea of ​​letting their fields lie fallow, at least 80 percent of properties eligible for the new program have signed up to participate, said Tina Shields, the district’s water manager.

“We don’t like to leave a fallow here,” Shields said. “They make business decisions.”

The move comes as producers of alfalfa and other crops used to feed livestock have seen hay prices plummet because of increased supply. For many, that means a summer alfalfa crop could yield less than the $300 in federal funding per acre-foot of water the water district is willing to pay if they simply stop watering it, experts said.

From California to Arkansas, farmers have reported a bumper year for hay and many are scrambling to find buyers or decide whether it’s worth paying to store it, said Sue Arnold, executive director of the Ohio-based National Hay Association.

“They have a lot more hay than they do this time of year, so their barns are full,” she said of the organization’s members. “They’re afraid they’re going to be left with all this stock.”

Hay exporters are struggling with the strong U.S. dollar and some foreign markets willing to accept a lower-quality product than premium hay grown in the United States, particularly in the Imperial Valley, Arnold said.

The idea of ​​paying farmers to stop irrigation came about last year as part of a agreement between Arizona, Nevada and California to help the dwindling Colorado River, which provides water to 40 million people in seven U.S. states, parts of Mexico and more than two dozen Native American tribes — and has seen its water levels drop during a severe drought.

Under the plan, the federal government agreed to spend $1.2 billion to allow users to temporarily reduce their water use. The goal was to conserve an additional 3 million acre-feet of water by 2026 — more than half of those reductions coming from California — when current river-sharing guidelines expire.

The Imperial Irrigation District, which is the largest user of Colorado River water in California, has developed a voluntary program for farmers to temporarily stop watering alfalfa, quackgrass or Klein grass in the summer, crops that can withstand short-term drought. The idea is to do it when yields are already low in the summer, more water is needed and dairy farms tend to keep their head counts low.

The district had proposed launching the program in the spring, but faced delays due to environmental concerns, including the fate of the tiny endangered species. desert puppyfishwhich thrives on irrigation runoff. Environmental permits are still pending, but the district has chosen to enroll participants in the program now to save time, Shields said.

So far, the program has received applications from about 170 different companies covering nearly 160,000 acres (64,750 hectares) of fields, which could save about 215,000 acre-feet of water, she said.

Trevor Tagg, a hay producer in the Imperial Valley, is among the many in the program. He said alfalfa prices have plummeted over the past two years as supply has increased and farmers have no choice but to keep growing crops in the fields and hope prices will rise in the future. He said he and many others have sat down and done the math: What the water district is offering is a better chance than what they can get by cutting the crop right now.

A few years ago he said a ton of hay could bring in $400, but today it might only bring in $100.

“The pendulum is swinging very hard,” he said. “It’s a very difficult situation. You see farms on the verge of bankruptcy, many, many of them.”

Tough times force farmers to make tough choices, and shutting off water for a month or two is seen as a better option than letting fields lie fallow longer and hurting the local economy, where equipment suppliers and local restaurants also rely on agriculture for their livelihoods. About a quarter of Imperial County’s agricultural production comes from field crops, according to a county agricultural report.

“It allows us to continue farming the land one more day,” Tagg said. “It supports the river, it supports Lake Mead. It supports everything we’re trying to do.”

“It’s not perfect for anyone,” he said.