Caps on groundwater use create a new market in California

A LONG STRETCH of highway running between Los Angeles and San Francisco separates the dry hills to the west from the green plains of the San Joaquin Valley to the east, where much of America’s fruit, nuts and vegetables are grown. Every couple of miles billboards hint at the looming threat to the valley. “Is growing food a waste of water?” one billboard asks. Another simply says, “No Water, no Jobs”.

In the San Joaquin Valley agriculture accounts for 18% of jobs and agriculture runs on water. Most of it comes from local rivers and rainfall, some is imported from the river deltas upstate, and the rest is pumped out of groundwater basins. During the drought of 2012-16 landowners pumped more and more groundwater to compensate for the lack of rain. Thousands of wells ran dry. As a result, California passed a law requiring water users to organise themselves into local Groundwater Sustainability Agencies (GSAs), with the aim of bringing groundwater use to sustainable levels by the early 2040s. In the driest basins, GSAs must file plans on how to do so by the end of January 2020.

The Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC), a think-tank, estimates that this could result in as much as 15% of the valley’s 5.2m acres of irrigated cropland lying fallow. At first glance, each farmer seems to be faced with a choice: let land go...

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