California is having its driest year ever. In West Texas, no one alive has seen this little rain. Drought extends from the Pacific coast as far east as Mississippi, Wisconsin, and Illinois.

Drought is raising food prices, which are already stratospheric. Wheat prices, worsened by a shortage due to Russia’s war in Ukraine, have spiked.

Soybeans are the highest in ten years. Avocados haven’t been this expensive since the 1990s. Corn prices are flirting with an all-time record. America’s drought will push them and others higher.

The U.S. Drought Monitor shows that the West’s current multiyear drought is “the most extensive and intense” in the 22-year history of the database.

“Right now, I can’t give anyone any good news,” said Rich Tinker, meteorologist, with the National Weather Service and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Access to water has become an issue in whether farmers are eligible for loans, according to Curt Covington, senior director of institutional credit and commodities expert at AgAmerica, one of the largest non-bank agricultural lenders in the U.S. No water…no loan.

A study from the University of California at Merced found that last year the drought cost the California agriculture industry more than $1.1 billion and 14,000 jobs.

Some California communities, particularly lower-income and neighborhoods of color, are without clean water. An estimated 12,000 residents of the state’s Central Valley ran dry during the drought of 2012–16. Thousands ran out of water last year.

There are no solutions right now, but we do have options. We have to use water more efficiently and that includes finding ways to use no water at all.

www.waterless.com

Source: Forbes Magazine, April 21, 2022

#water #agriculture #drought #waterefficiency