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Drought Affects Urban Farmers in California

Many issues that urban farmers encounter during drought (and even when drought is not severe) can be attributed to California’s uneven water landscape and decentralized water system as it pertains to municipal supply (photo courtesy Rachel Surls, UCCE.)

Decentralized water system and municipal water restrictions create special headaches for urban agriculture.

By Taylor Chalstrom
Organic Farmer
October 7, 2021

Excerpt:

Urban farmers can suffer from many of the same consequences of drought as large-scale farmers. Issues that urban farmers encounter during drought (and even when drought is not severe) include water rationing, drought surcharges, and access to water infrastructure such as lines or meters. Many of these issues can be attributed to California’s uneven water landscape and decentralized water system as it pertains to municipal supply.

A number of factors interact to create an uneven water landscape for urban farmers and gardeners, according to UCCE Urban Agriculture and Food Systems Advisor Lucy Diekmann, and these factors become even more complicated during drought.

Diekmann said a key factor of California’s uneven water landscape is its decentralized water system, noting that most water for urban agriculture comes from municipal sources and is frequently more expensive than other non-potable sources of irrigation water. “During drought, urban water restrictions are likely to apply to farms and gardens using municipal water,” she said. “These could have a large impact on urban farms’ operations if they have to ration water or limit watering to certain days and times.”

A case study led by Diekmann published in 2017 looked at how urban agriculture in Santa Clara County was affected by drought. An important finding of the study, which can be found at tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13549839.2017.1351426?journalCode=cloe20, showed that some urban farmers connected to non-municipal water supplies, such as wells, experienced water shortages.

“One farm’s well ran dry, forcing them to end their season early,” Diekmann said.

Read the complete article here.