Natural Resource

The greatest threat to our food supply today is the depreciation of agriculture by transferring water from food production to the growth of cities, and to certain energy production projects.  Cities do provide much for our economic engines but a diverse, secure, and safe food supply is equally important. We already have seen the results of some sources of foreign food supplies such as tainted milk from China.

Additionally, the depreciation of our agricultural community affects many other segments of rural economies, and the communities that rely on them. Rural communities have intrinsic aesthetic value: lifestyle, art, crafts, and culture.

Water rights belonging to agriculture are large. The agricultural community has options for that water like supplying alternative energy resources such as solar thermal. Yet agriculture can be more water efficient so that it can use its rights in these other ways.

How do we get to reform water management, policies, and investments to improve water use efficiency? By 1) industrial recycling, 2) household, municipal water conservation, 3) irrigation: gains from technology, 4) management, institutional reform, 5) investing for efficiency.

City and business interests are clearly after agricultural water rights; reform is needed in every segment not just agriculture.

The path is for the agricultural, municipal and industrial, and the environmental communities to engage this challenge in an open forum that leads to all stakeholders benefiting with workable solutions developed by all.

There is enough for all to prosper, but the key is sharing without doing harm to one sector for the benefit of another.

Terry Marasco

From A Statement of the Utah Farm Bureau Federation Regarding SNAKE VALLEY GROUNDWATER PUMPING, By Randy Parker, Exec. Dir

"Water is the lifeblood of the arid west. Availability of water is critical to the associated rural economies and farm and ranch families.  Even the slightest lowering of the underground water resource could adversely impact farmers and ranchers.  Increased costs associated with deeper pumping of water could render agriculture economically infeasible in the region."

Alice Waters of Chez Panisse, Berkeley, CA: ''The act of eating is very political,'' she said. ''You buy from the right people, you support the right network of farmers and suppliers who care about the land and what they put in the food. If we don't preserve the natural resources, you aren't going to have a sustainable society. This is not something for Chez Panisse and the elite of San Francisco. It's for everyone. Clinton should be planting a kitchen garden on the White House lawn.''