Some Northern California Farmers Not Planting This Year, Sell Water To Los Angeles At $700 Per Acre

[nitpicker]

http://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2015/03/17/drought-some-northern-california-farmers-not-planting-sell-water-rights-los-angeles/

Some Northern California Farmers Not Planting This Year, Sell Water To Los Angeles At $700 Per Acre Foot
March 17, 2015 7:05 PM

YUBA COUNTY (KPIX 5) – The rice industry in the Sacramento Valley is taking a hard hit with the drought. Some farmers are skipping out on their fields this year, because they are cashing in on their water rights. Many fields will stay dry because farmers will be doing what was once considered unthinkable: selling their water to Southern California.

“In the long term, if we don’t make it available we’re afraid they’ll just take it,” said Charlie Mathews, a fourth generation rice farmer with senior rights to Yuba River water. He and his fellow growers have agreed to sell 20 percent of their allotment to Los Angeles’s Metropolitan Water District as it desperately searches to add to its dwindling supply.

It’s not really surprising that Southern California is looking for a place to buy water. But what is making news is how much they’ve agreed to pay for it: $700 per acre foot of water.

Just last year, rice farmers were amazed when they were offered $500 per acre foot. This new price means growers will earn a lot more money on the fields they don’t plant, making water itself the real cash crop in California.

(snip)

[nitpicker]

1. Comparison to the water-sewer rates around here

325851.427 gallons per acre-foot. So about $.002 per gallon.

Versus every three months about $90-110 for around 18000 gallons of water in the water-sewer-trash bill, or $.005-006 per gallon.

I expect people in Southern California will gripe when the acquisition cost is passed on to them..

[NickB79]

2. The fact that there are any rice farmers left in CA makes me weep for humanity

What part of "epic, unprecedented drought" is so fucking hard to grasp that someone still thinks to grow a goddamn SWAMP plant?

[FBaggins]

7. +1

That's about the size of it.

[SamKnause]

3. Confused ???

Are the farmers paying for the water and reselling it ?

Who owns the water ?

If the farmers do not own the water how can they sell it ?

Thanks in advance for any input.

[daleanime]

4. And this is just the start.....

[madokie]

5. Although I love rice I don't eat very much

too many scare stories of how most of what we eat, (rice,) comes from china and the shit they grow rice in. This will only get worse with this news

[DamnYankeeInHouston]

6. Texmati rice is grown in Texas.

[madokie]

8. I don't see that brand on our shelves here though

but can we be sure it is all coming from texas with the way our food procuring is and all. For instance, look at the honey and where most of it comes from. Every jar I see, it says from local or domestic sources, not China or South America or anywhere else but yet we know that tons of it is shipped here from china.

I won't buy fish from the supermarket either cause I have no idea if its even what they say it is. I can go out west of me a few miles and buy from a guy with a fish farm who I know it is what he says it is and its locally grown. Nothing quiet like a good well cleaned catfish filet on the dinner table. Hmmmm good

[nitpicker]

9. Input costs vary

BUT at $700 per acre foot per year, that is near the total per acre of profit minus operating costs.

Cut back your ops and make about the same money? Why not?

One cost study claimed that it costs only about $50 for an acre-foot of water in CA to a grower.