The farmers fretting over Colorado River water even before latest cuts
Nancy Caywood worries about water constantly. Water – or the uncertainty of it – has kept the 69-year-old Arizona farmer awake at night since supplies began dwindling about two decades ago due to chronic overuse and drought in the American west. During one particularly low point in late 2021, every field on the 255-acre family farm was either fallow, shrivelled or dormant. … [It] is now surrounded by fallow fields, tumbleweed and solar farms. … About half the irrigated farmland will be left unplanted in Pinal county this year, and hundreds of rural jobs have already been lost. Farms are having to rely almost exclusively on groundwater, further depleting the aquifers. … The region’s water crisis isn’t new and cuts were not entirely unexpected, yet most farmers have continued to farm the same water-guzzling crops using the same wasteful irrigation techniques …
Related article:
- KGNU – Boulder: Cows Are Consuming A Staggering Amount Of Colorado River Water