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<P><B>Farmers Fill Up at Federal Water Trough</B> <BR><B>Big growers on Fresno
County's west side reaped at least $24 million in 2002</B> <BR><B>water
subsidies, an activist group says.</B>
<P>By Mark Arax <BR>Times Staff Writer
<P>December 15, 2004
<P>HURON, Calif. — This is a valley that wears its mistrust of the federal
government proudly.
<P>From Bakersfield to Modesto, handmade signs planted firmly in San Joaquin
Valley farm soil call for <BR>the death of activist federal judges. Bumper
stickers shout the primacy of private property and gun <BR>rights.
<P>But the payments that flow into the valley from Washington, D.C. — those are
a different matter. <BR>Nearly a third of the population in this farm belt
relies on some form of federal public assistance, <BR>figures show, one of the
highest such dependency rates in the nation.
<P>And then there is the federal support that few locals like to talk about: the
water and crop subsidies <BR>that keep the wealthiest citizens in tall cotton.
<P>Each year, a score of big farmers on Fresno County's west side receive
millions of dollars in price <BR>supports and subsidized water for their cotton,
nut, tomato, garlic, onion and grape crops.
<P>A report by the Environmental Working Group, a Washington, D.C.-based
nonprofit trying to reform <BR>the agricultural subsidy system, shows that farms
in Huron and the surrounding area received, by <BR>the most conservative
measure, $24 million in water subsidies in 2002. That figure does not include
<BR>millions more in cotton and wheat subsidies.
<P>The report comes as the federal Bureau of Reclamation is renegotiating its
long-term contracts with <BR>agricultural users in the Central Valley Project,
the nation's largest irrigation system.
<P>The negotiations have raised concerns among environmentalists, who say that
the U.S. government is <BR>about to give farmers another sweetheart deal.
Farmers respond that the inexpensive water allows <BR>them to compete in a
global market flooded with cheap foreign crops.
<P>The report, released today, measures the water use of each farm tied to the
Central Valley Project. The <BR>biggest farming operation in Fresno County, run
by the Woolf family, used 29,000 acre-feet of water <BR>to irrigate 19,000 acres
of crops. That is enough water to fill more than 37,000 Olympic-sized
<BR>swimming pools, the report said.
<P>"The figures show very clearly that despite the fact that the CVP was
conceived as a way to support <BR>small family farmers, that subsidy today is
overwhelmingly going to the largest and richest farms," <BR>said Bill Walker,
one of the report's authors.
<P>The amount of water that each farm draws from the project is a matter of
public record. The watchdog <BR>group, which each year assesses crop subsidies
to farms nationwide, calculated the value of the water <BR>by using three
different formulas. Farmers who saw only excerpts of the report didn't take
issue with <BR>the most conservative formula, which yielded the
$24-million-a-year subsidy figure.
<P>But one formula, which based the water's value on what it would cost to
replace it in today's market, <BR>was criticized by farmers. That formula
calculated the total yearly subsidy to farmers on Fresno <BR>County's west side
at $110 million. For farmers throughout the Central Valley Project, the figure
was <BR>$416 million.
<P>"This is a supposed analysis that is based upon false assumptions and some
hypothetical fair market <BR>value for water that doesn't exist," said Tom
Birmingham, general manager of the Westlands Water <BR>District, the biggest
irrigator in the California Valley Project. " A lot of our farmers are using
drip <BR>irrigation. They are among the most efficient water users in the world,
right up there with farmers in <BR>Israel."
<P>The debate is hardly new. Over the decades, as the San Joaquin Valley has
grown into the most <BR>productive agricultural region in the world, politicians
and bureaucrats have grappled with the issues <BR>of water and the size of
farms. The old Jeffersonian ideal held that cheap water was a means to develop
<BR>the West with small and mid-sized farms. The Central Valley Project, which
began construction in the <BR>mid-1930s, grew out of that ideal.
<P>But the economies of scale — efficient big farms swallowing up inefficient
small ones — have dictated <BR>otherwise. Reclamation law no longer prohibits
cheap federal water from going to farms larger than <BR>160 acres. Farms up to
960 acres can qualify.
<P>Even so, prominent farm families in western Fresno County have found a way to
obtain subsidies for <BR>even larger holdings. By dividing their 10,000- and
15,000-acre operations into 960-acre chunks, <BR>many growers in the Westlands
district have managed to receive a lion's share of the project's water —
<BR>more than 25% in many years, the report said.
<P>The Britz family, for example, has divided its Westlands holdings into nine
separate entities, each one <BR>receiving crop and water subsidies. In 2002 and
2003, the Britzes received more than $1 million in <BR>crop supports and nearly
$300,000 in water subsidies. The Britzes could not be reached for comment.
<P>The Woolf family has weaned itself from crop subsidies by replacing cotton
and wheat — crops that <BR>receive price supports — with vegetables, almonds,
pistachios and grapes. But the family's water <BR>subsidy in 2002 was at least
$710,000, the report found.
<P>Stuart Woolf, president and chief executive of Woolf Enterprises, said his
family has spent millions of <BR>dollars to convert from flood irrigation to
more efficient drip irrigation.
<P>"This study gives the impression that we're big water wasters," Woolf said.
"The reality is, we don't <BR>have enough water to use, and we have to manage
every drop."
<P>"The Environmental Working Group is raising some good questions, but I would
encourage them to <BR>come visit our farm and learn a little bit about the
careful way we manage water resources. We're <BR>good stewards."
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