Experts concerned with certain California crops taking up too much water during drought

In the desert farming community of Eastern Riverside County’s Palo Verde Valley, on the Arizona border, daytime temperatures routinely exceed 100 degrees. 

“Cotton likes the heat,” said farmer Jack Seiler, adding another crop that can thrive in extreme heat is alfalfa. 

On his farm, Seiler grows thousands of acres of it. Once matured, the crop is mowed and prepared for shipping. He pointed to a loaded trick headed for a dairy farm in Bakersfield. 

“It’s a hot commodity,” exclaimed Seiler. “They’re coming for it.”

It is what dairy cows eat, and California is big in dairy production. Dairy products and milk are valuable commodities, pulling in close to $7.5 billion a year.

During the drought, some are questioning the practice of growing crops like alfalfa in the area. U.C. Riverside Economist Chris Thornberg is one such critic.

“The last thing you do is give water to farmers to waste it by growing stuff in the desert that should never be grown, ” said Thornberg.

Thornberg’s gripe with Seiler’s farm and others in the area is the amount of water they use to grow these crops.

Seiler’s farm borders the Colorado River, the sixth-longest river in the nation. The land his family has owned since 1967 came with the right to use as much river water as needed to grow whatever crops he chooses.

Imperial and Palo Verde Valley farmers were first to lay claim to the river’s water, meaning they are last to be impacted by water restrictions.

But Thornberg pointed out that 16 percent of the alfalfa grown in California is shipped all the way to Saudi Arabia to feed dairy cattle there. Saudi Arabia banned the growing of alfalfa because of water shortages in the country. 

“I will not agree that we should allow Saudi Arabian cows and horses a higher deference to our own environment,” noted Thornberg.

Saudi cows aside, up to 80 percent of all California’s produced water is currently used for agriculture. Given the state’s mega-drought, Thornberg said it is too much.

“We over allocate this incredibly scarce resource on the basis of 100-year-old contracts,” he added. 

Thornberg’s solution is to grow these crops in cooler, wetter states and send the water saved to Southern California cities. 

To learn more about California’s drought, tune into “Parched: California’s Water Crisis,” which airs Thursday at 7 pm on CBS 2 and streaming on CBSLA.com.