Click the link to read the article on the KUER website (David Condos). Here’s an excerpt:
December 18, 2024
Across Utah, farmers are experimenting with ways to tighten their water use as agriculture, drought and population growth collide to put pressure on the state’s limited water resources. Some are installing more efficient irrigation technology. Others are testing unconventional crops. In Hunt’s case, he’s taking some of his farmland out of commission entirely — for a time and for a price…For the past two years, [Coby] Hunt has taken part in a federal program that pays farmers to temporarily leave their fields empty and lease the conserved water to the government. It’s something that has been going on for years across the Colorado River Basin. Now, Utah is launching its version of that effort. The new multimillion-dollar plan incentivizes conservation and aims to do a better job of tracking that saved water in hopes of getting credit for it in future Colorado River dealings. The practice of leaving a field idle for a season is called fallowing, and Hunt conceded it’s not for everyone.
“Some of the farmers don’t like it. In fact, they don’t like me for leasing my water.”
[…]
Many don’t want the feds involved in their business, he said, or worry the government might take their water permanently if they show they can get by without it. For farmers who grow other crops, like Green River’s famed melons, he said it might not make financial sense to sit out a year and lose your customer base…Hunt usually grows feed for the cattle he raises, so he’s still had plenty to do while this 30-acre field sits empty. Fallowing has just meant he needs to buy hay from elsewhere. He feels good about the amount of water it saves, too. His water right would typically allow him to use six acre-feet of water a year, he said — enough to cover Hunt and the acre he’s standing on over his head. Because his fields are some of the last ones upstream from Lake Powell, it’s easy to imagine the water he conserves making it to the reservoir. That’s why farmers like Hunt are vital to Utah’s new effort to conserve more Colorado River water, called the Demand Management Pilot Program. What’s novel about it is how it will track and document the water savings.
