Congress, Stop Financing Arizona's Water-Guzzling Cotton Crop - It's Killing the Colorado
- by: Susan V
- recipient: U.S. Congress
For decades the USDA has been paying farmers to grow cotton in Arizona’s Sonoran Desert, which has nearly killed the Colorado River.
The only way farmers can grow one of the world’s thirstiest crops in one of its driest places, is by importing billions of gallons of water from the Colorado River each year.
But even though the demand and price for cotton no longer warrants taking these extreme and damaging measures, the USDA intends to continue making cotton farmers an offer they can’t refuse - huge financial incentives to continue growing cotton.
Even though wheat , lettuce, alfalfa, and particularly hemp, use far less water, as one farmer put it, getting the banks to finance their farms was a sure thing, so long as they stuck with cotton. Starting this year, reports ProPublica, the USDA will use taxpayer dollars to buy farmers additional crop insurance, “ instead of paying direct subsidies.
But experts say that if Arizona switched from cotton to wheat, it would save enough water to meet the yearly needs of 1.4 millions people. Even better, according to a 2014 Los Angeles Times story, if they switched to hemp they’d save even more water and make a lot more money. And the cost of crop conversion, says ProPublica, would be far less than the billions the government plans to spend on desalination of ocean water.
Sign this petition to help save the Colorado River. Insist Congress take steps to convert water guzzling crop production in Arizona.
We, the undersigned, agree with ProPublica’s assertion that ‘There’s little financial reason not to“ convert Arizona‘s cotton to a less water-guzzling crop.
It also doesn’t seem like a bad idea to use the older practice of crop rotation, of several crops that are less water-dependent. Based on the LA Times article, hemp, in particular, appears to be a perfect solution to the water shortage problem that would replace the need for taxpayer-financed crop insurance.
In fact the 2014 Farm Bill did something right by allowing the return of the hemp industry after cultivating the crop had been outlawed for 77 years. As a result, American farmers now have the opportunity to make the kind of high profits our neighbors to the north in Canada have been making for years., as soon as the DEA gets out of their way.
What’s even more encouraging is the Times’ and other sources’ claims that “hemp can help restore our agricultural economy [and] play a key role in dealing with climate change…” The article quotes a new hemp farmer in Colorado who claims his crop “’takes half the water that wheat does,'" he says while “scooping up a handful of drought-scarred soil so parched it evoked the Sahara, 'and provides four times the income.’”
Another reason to move away from cotton and in favor of hemp is the heavy pesticide use associated with cotton - not at all necessary for growing hemp, which provides a more than adequate substitute for cotton and many other materials.
Whatever the change, it’s clear that cotton is the wrong choice for Arizona’s deserts. It’s dependence on intense irrigation is killing the Colorado River and not meeting any necessary needs. Therefore conversion to less water-guzzling crops should be implemented at once, and all barriers to growing hemp removed as well.
Thanks for your time.
Visit: http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-fine-hemp-marijuana-legalize-20140626-story.html
https://projects.propublica.org/killing-the-colorado/story/arizona-cotton-drought-crisis
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