Water Dialogue

To give appropriate context to private (on-farm) adaptation and political efforts by farmers to shape public policy, this project is conducting a survey of farmers in California’s Central Valley region. The survey will ask farmers questions about their concerns as to water availability, their own efforts to adapt to water scarcity, and their opinions about existing and proposed policies b state lawmakers and regulators to address this challenge. Within the survey, we examine farmers’ assessments of the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA), as well as their experiences participating in and willingness to contribute to deliberations by their local sustainable groundwater agency. Finally, we track farmers’ current usage of and future interest in particular state programs and private sustainable agriculture practices developed to conserve water on their farms.