LOS ANGELES – Ever since the Gold Rush, California farmers have staked their claim to water and ferociously protected their right to use it to irrigate the crops that have made the state the grocer for the nation.
But on Friday, in a sign of how the record-setting drought is shaking up established ways here, state officials accepted an offer from farmers in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta to give up a quarter of their water this season by leaving part of their land unplanted or finding other ways to reduce their water use.
The deal is an important concession from growers that officials hope will prompt similar agreements throughout the state’s agricultural industry, which uses 80 percent of the water consumed in the state in a normal year.
“We’re in an unprecedented drought, and we have to exercise the state’s water rights in an unprecedented way,” said Felicia Marcus, chairwoman of the state Water Resources Control Board. “This is a breakthrough in what has long been a rhetorical battle. It’s a significant turning point to have people say, ‘We know this is complicated. We want to do something early in good faith that is a pragmatic solution for everyone.’”
In the weeks since Gov. Jerry Brown announced across-the-board cutbacks for urban water systems, the state’s farmers have become something of a scapegoat.
Residents who are timing their showers and letting their lawns turn brown have angrily accused the agricultural industry of not doing enough to curb its own use of water, although many growers have faced dramatic cuts for the past two years.
Farmers up and down the state feel besieged, and they have fought back with public relations campaigns to emphasize their conservation efforts and explain how their produce feeds much of the country.
While the deal made Friday is unlikely to have a dramatic effect on food prices or the water supply, the concession by the farmers was a pre-emptive effort to limit potentially steeper cuts.
