Most of my life I knew alfalfa as the dopey kid from “The Little Rascals” with a dipstick coiffure who was, inexplicably, Darla’s crush. But driving through the fields of Imperial Valley mid-October, alfalfa was everywhere bailed in one- to half-ton cubes piled five high and 15 across.
Voice of San Diego photojournalist Ariana Drehsler and I passed so much of it I wondered, how much does this stuff go for? Asking around revealed the market rate for alfalfa falls somewhere between $200 and $300 per ton or more, depending on where it’s grown and purchased. Like a mirage, the rows of green bales whizzing by looked more like stacks of cash.
Imperial Valley is an alfalfa production machine. Farmers grow the flowering legume, generically called hay, to feed livestock. It’s Imperial Valley’s second-largest crop to cattle, generating over $269 million in 2022, according to the region’s most recent crop report.
But alfalfa can be a sensitive topic in Imperial Valley. Humans don’t eat it. But we consume products from the cattle that do. Some of it is exported to other countries that don’t have many seasons to grow it. Farmers from France, Spain and Italy at the World Alfalfa Congress’ visit to Imperial Valley last year (yes, an Alfalfa Congress, a special-interest group under the University of California-Davis) told me they were impressed Imperial Valley pumps out nine or more harvests of alfalfa per year. In a good year, France can get about four. They have to pay a premium to import the rest.
Alfalfa is so controversial because it requires so much water, especially in an arid region like Imperial Valley. It’s hard to find good data, but the University of Arizona estimated about four to six acre feet of water per acre of alfalfa each growing season. (An acre foot is about how much two California households use both indoors and outdoors each year.)
Imperial Valley is the single largest user of the drought-stricken Colorado River among seven U.S. states and Mexico. In extreme drought, journalists parachute in and grill Imperial Valley farmers on why they continue to grow grass with precious Colorado River water. Ask farmer Ronnie Leimgruber and he’ll tell you straight: “I grow it because it’s the most profitable crop I can grow on that acre of land.”
If the market demanded more lettuce, he’d grow lettuce. If it demanded more broccoli, he’d grow that, he said.
“But people want to eat a cheeseburger. They want to eat beef. They want to eat a Happy Meal,” he said.
Aaron Smith, an agricultural economist at UC-Davis, said a lot of the opposition to alfalfa comes from what people think of using livestock products – meat, cheese and milk – in food.
“From a pure resources perspective, it’s inefficient to grow plants, then feed those to animals and have animals use that energy and then we eat that energy,” Smith said. “It would be more efficient to directly eat plants but the problem is, they don’t taste as good.”
Imperial Valley locals described keeping the farming region alive as a matter of national security. The thinking is: Should catastrophe strike, islanding the United States from importing and exporting goods, Imperial Valley could grow anything the country needs with its ancient river delta-enriched soils, guaranteed water supply from the Colorado River and year-round desert sun.
There’s a long history of farmers pivoting to whatever crops are in high demand. During WWII when the country needed paint for aircraft, Imperial Valley grew flax seed used to make the oil-based product. They grow a kind of beet that makes baking sugar and all varieties of salad ingredients for the winter dinner tables of the country. But alfalfa continues to be a top crop year after year.
A record-smashing wet winter offered brief respite from years of compounding drought exacerbated by human-caused climate change on the Colorado River. Imperial Valley offered to cut back its use by 250,000 acre-feet per year until 2026.
But the West will most certainly find itself deep in drought again and alfalfa in the hot seat, along with lawns and other criticized water uses in the West.
That’s why people like Leimgruber committed to memory the number of golf courses in each state that use Colorado River water.
So, which would you be willing to give up first: Your tee time, your burger or your lawn? That may be a question the U.S. faces sooner rather than later.
In Other News
- The city of Oceanside is getting closer to selecting its next beach designer who will help keep its dwindling sand supplies on shore. I wrote about the design competition in an earlier piece and another about how maybe the U.S. Government should be doing this work instead. (Union-Tribune and Voice of San Diego)
- In other farming news, our North County reporter Tigist Layne and photographer Ariana Drehsler showed us the inner world of farmworkers in Carlsbad temporarily living at a homeless shelter an hour’s walk from the fields. (Voice of San Diego)
- San Diego spends millions for Colorado River water from Imperial Valley farmers. Here’s how some of it is spent. (Voice of San Diego)
- Proponents for public power want the city of San Diego to form its own utility via a ballot measure in 2024. (Voice of San Diego)
- Relief from sewage blighting South Bay beaches is near, says IBWC officials. Tijuana wastewater workers are supposed to restore a sewage main that’s been broken for a year by mid-November. (Voice of San Diego)
- KPBS’ Andrew Bowen elucidated how an increase in car transportation is canceling out other progress the city of San Diego made on reducing planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions.
- inewsource’s Philip Salata detailed the developing intrigue in Imperial Valley’s potential lithium mining future. Investment is trickling in, he writes, but it’s unclear when the promised results will materialize for the community.
- California’s natural gas utilities are cautiously optimistic that prices for the fossil fuel won’t reach obscene levels like last winter. But a lot depends on weather, demand and supply. (Union-Tribune)
- California regulators continue to put off a decision on new solar tariffs that drastically cut the value of that renewable electricity. (KPBS)
I agree a water intensive crop such as Alfalfa should not be grown in SoCal.
We have about a two year grace period due to the wet winter last year and the Colorado River Compact deal worked out this summer. Farmers should use that to start transitioning away from Alfalfa. Drought is a fact of life in the West both in the Northern River system and the Southern River system. Our water emergency will return.
On Monday 11/6/23 the Lake Meade water level is at 1,069 feet, or 164 feet below full pool. At 950 ft the dam can no longer generate power, at 895 we have Dead Pool and the Colorado River below the Hoover Dam goes dry. This year we bottomed out at 1,030 ft. The Federal Government will not let Lake Meade fall to power cut off, they will impose a solution. As I said, we have a reprieve, we have not solved the problem.
The farmers must move away from high water use crops. San Diego must build another large Desal Plant to make us water independent. When that happens we can sell some of our water rights back to the Imperial Irrigation District, they’re going to need it. Or we can sell those water rights to the highest bidder, they will be VERY valuable at that time.
Too many articles on this subject fail to differentiate between farms that grow alfalfa exclusively and those who use it as a rotational crop. Many farms grow alfalfa one season of the year as a nitrogen fixer.
Alfalfa is not a seasonal crop. It is an perennial plant and a stand is often farmed for 4-5 years then other crops are rotated in to keep the fields healthy.
The farmers of Imperial County have sufficient water to grows these crops. The issue is the urbanized area wants the water, but doesn’t have the high priority rights that the Imperial County does. They sell their water to the urban areas, not vise versa. Perhaps the urban areas should stop irrigating their landscape?