Record Columnist, Big Ag Respond to Article on Westlands

Here are two responses to my article, "USDA Data Dispels Myth that West Side Growers Feed the Nation," http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2010/01/01/18634001.php.

First, Mike Fitzgerald, the hard-hitting columnist of the Stockton Record who has been a persistent critic of the peripheral canal and California water policies, made a very favorable comment about the article on his blog: http://blogs.esanjoaquin.com/stockton-metro-columnist/page/2/

The Westlands: possibly a net loss

By MICHAEL FITZGERALD | Published: DECEMBER 31, 2009 |

"That 'We’re feeding the world!' line Hannity and others spout about the Westlands as an argument to ignore the dying Delta is baloney, Dan Bacher reports. They don’t grow that much food, and when the special costs of propping them up are toted up, they may even be a net loss.

If there’s a California state equivalent to the Pulitzer Prize, Bacher ought to win it. His reporting through the water crisis has been tremendous."

Thanks, Mike!

Second, another Mike, Mike Wade of the California Farm Water Coalition wasn't very happy with the article - or any of the reporting on California water done by either Lloyd Carter or myself. "Farm water critics Dan Bacher and Lloyd Carter regularly denounce the governor, the legislature and most of the environmental community for doing too much to try to fix our broken water system," he claimed on http://www.californiaagnet.com.

He accuses us of "cracked logic" and criticizes us for "not contributing to a solution" to California's "water problems." Of course, the "solution" of Wade, Governor Schwarzenegger and corporate agribusiness is a peripheral canal, more dams and the stripping of protections for Delta smelt, Central Valley salmon, longfin smelt, green sturgeon and the southern resident population of killer whales.

He claims, "According to the University of California, water shortages cost California agriculture more than 21,000 jobs in 2009."

That is simply not true. In contrast to these highly exaggerated figures, Jeffrey Michael, University of the Pacific economist, estimates that the San Joaquin Valley has actually lost 8,500 jobs from reduced water exports in 2009. "Roughly 2,000 of these are attributable to the endangered Delta smelt and the rest to the natural drought," said Michael (http://forecast.pacific.edu/water-jobs/Pacific-BFC-Water-Jobs.pdf).

Here is the complete commentary: http://www.californiaagnet.com/pages/landing_news?Farm-Water-Critics-Are-At-It-Again=1&blockID=114014&feedID=2523

Farm Water Critics Are At It Again

By Mike Wade, Executive Director

California Farm Water Coalition

Sacramento, Calif., (January 8, 2009) – Farm water critics Dan Bacher and Lloyd Carter regularly denounce the governor, the legislature and most of the environmental community for doing too much to try to fix our broken water system. They have variously claimed in the past that there is no drought in California, that the loss of tens of thousands of farm jobs this past year has had no impact on employment, and that the absence of water deliveries to the Central Valley and Southern California is not affected by regulations that prevent those deliveries from being made.

In a recent web posting, Bacher joins Carter in claiming that the billions of dollars that agriculture on the Westside generates every year is worthless. Or as Carter puts it, "They may actually not be generating any true wealth out there at all." In the Westlands Water District, for example, Carter argues that the farmers are only earning $30 million in what he calls "true net" income. By his cracked logic, that works out to about $50,000 per family, which makes one wonder how they stay in business and why Carter and Bacher are always denouncing them as millionaires.

As much as Carter and Bacher try to deny, dismiss and make light of the water crisis, the fact is there's nothing funny about the economic catastrophe that has struck the Westside or the hardships that water shortages are causing for 25 million Californians. According to the University of California, water shortages cost California agriculture more than 21,000 jobs in 2009. More than 250,000 acres of productive farmlands had to be fallowed because there was not enough water to grow crops. The thousands of people in line at the food banks in the Central Valley this year are part of the reality that Bacher and Carter would prefer to ignore.

How much money did agriculture on the Westside earn in 2009? Farmers are still tabulating those numbers with respect to individual commodities and they'll be making their reports to state and national authorities for publication later this year just like always. In Westlands, preliminary estimates suggest that the district as a whole produced more than a billion dollars worth of crops, thanks in part to a rise in the prices paid for tomatoes. And those sales in turn generated $3.5 billion in additional economic activity for local businesses. There's no question that agriculture would have contributed even more to California's economy if we had not had to take those hundreds of thousands of acres out of production because of water shortages.

How important is California agriculture to the nation's food supply? California contains only four percent of the nation's farms and yet it produces 12.8 percent of the value of U.S. agricultural production. A commitment to water use efficiency and the application of the most advanced water-saving techniques have made farming on the Westside especially productive. California as a whole produces most of the nation's supplies of a wide range of agricultural commodities. But just as important, much of what is produced here cannot be replaced by other U.S. farms. During two six-week periods in the spring and fall every year, for example, 95 percent of all the lettuce in the United States comes from Westlands.

There is no question that to maintain this kind of prosperity, California has to address its water problems. Bacher and Carter, unfortunately, are not contributing to a solution.