Near one half of California’s Imperial Valley water is used to grow alfalfa. Much of this crop is used to support the regions dairy operations, what isn’t shipped to the regions milk producers is exported to foreign markets.
Let’s get this said plain and simple. Alfalfa is a water intensive crop, perhaps the most water consumptive crop a farmer can elect to grow. If the Southwest had an abundance of water it might make sense to ship that extra water/alfalfa offshore to foreign markets.
Unfortunately over the last half century the composition of people to farms in the Southwest has dramatically shifted from being an empty rural region of our nation to a place with some of the fastest growing cities in the country.
Exporting water intensive alfalfa crops offshore may have made some sense decades ago, but in fact these exports are undermining the national security of the United States.
If we can’t get water to Las Vegas, Phoenix, Tucson, San Diego or Los Angeles urban residential and commercial water users our entire economy will grind to a halt.
The documentary I saw last night here at the Palm Springs Film Festival, The Green Desert tells the farmers perspective of this story, and it is not a black and white, this is all good or that is all bad story. Leafy salad greens, date palm tree crops and a host of other commodities destined for our kitchen tables are all grown here.
That is only 50-60% of the good news water use story. And it is this other chunk, this nearly half of all the water agriculture uses that is being misallocated, and it is a difficult and painful crossroads that industry isn’t ready to change.
In the next few years, by 2026 negotiators are going to untangle this mess. We’ll try to halt offshore shipments of alfalfa, reduce the size of the crop to just fit the domestic dairy industry.
Water will remain to grow our salad crops, water will remain to sustain our industrial and commercial sector, and the far larger economic benefits this water use supports.
My first script, this feature film The Last Drop tells a different story. It is a story of the end of the misallocation of water to grow alfalfa to ship to foreign markets. It is a comical story of chaos and change, of the dramatic transition to a more practical use of the regions water resources. It tells the story of a General Zeke Deadbolt who solves the misallocation when he takes a plane and a bomb and changes the status quo and puts into play the process of reallocating what water remains.
The Green Desert gives us a sober look at the problem, my comedy gives us a laugh while considering the possibility of doing what it takes to alter our climate induced water crisis here in the Southwest.
Climate change comedy means many things, one for sure is that change is coming whether we like it or not, so why don’t we all just take a deep breath and have a good laugh on the way to a more sensible more sustainable path to a better water use world.
