Opinion: Arizona farmers must use less water. Here’s how they can do it
A profound reduction in the Colorado River water earmarked for Arizona’s crops has at last triggered the rationing that irrigation farmers have dreaded. The Tier 1 shortage will prompt a 512,000-acre-foot reduction in Arizona’s Colorado River deliveries. That amounts to about 30% of Central Arizona Project’s normal supply. … Farmers will need to expand their horizons and tighten down their faucets, even more than they have done over the last three decades, as they successfully cut average per-acre water use by a fifth.
-Written by Gary Paul Nabhan, the W.K., Kellogg endowed chair for food and water security at the University of Arizona.