Watering a Sea of Alfalfa
Utah agriculture's dependence on alfalfa farming is bleeding our water and soil health dry—to disentangle our food system, markets, farmers, and consumers must all know the stakes.
The events of the last few years, namely the COVID pandemic, escalating climate collapse, and now the war in Ukraine, have revealed the fragility of our centralized, industrial food system. In early 2020, we saw a spike in food insecurity while farmers were forced to dump crops that couldn’t get to market due to supply chain breakdown. Warming temperatures have made agriculture more unpredictable and environmental shocks will continue to disrupt supply chains, amplifying the need to localize food production as much as possible—a tall order here in Utah, given our arid climate and booming population. Among all this, one thing is clear: we can’t discuss the future of local food without also talking about water.
In the Wasatch Range—the wettest part of the state—it can be easy to forget how dry Utah really is. We’re the second driest state in the nation and still, we have the highest per-capita municipal water use in the United States and some of the cheapest water in the country. Despite our high urban water use, most of Utah’s water, about 82%, is used for agriculture. About half of that agricultural water goes to irrigating alfalfa, a crop that consumes more water each year than all of Utah’s cities and towns combined. A member of the legume family, alfalfa is the fourth most widely grown crop in the United States behind soy, corn, and wheat. 40% of farms in Utah grow alfalfa. Their product is then used to feed local dairy and beef cattle, while the rest is exported abroad or to other states.
Alfalfa is a paradoxical crop. Lauded for its ability to withstand extremely dry conditions, it requires an immense amount of water. It’s also praised for being a perennial, meaning it grows year-round and in theory, helps to build soil’s organic matter—but this isn’t always the case. Tony Richards, Soil Health Program Manager with the Utah Department of Agriculture and Food says, “people are always surprised when we measure the soil health of alfalfa fields. They don't do as well as they think. You remove so much of the above-ground biomass and a lot of traffic on the field that causes soil compaction. Alfalfa tends not to build as much soil as we would hope because it is a take-all system.”
Last spring, Governor Cox announced a state of emergency due to ongoing drought. In his declaration, he offered water-saving recommendations like running full loads of laundry, reducing shower time, and fixing leaks—with almost no mention of agriculture or alfalfa. He did recommend that irrigation companies delay the start of the irrigation season, and suggested that cities and counties “consider” developing water-restriction plans. It’s relevant to note that Cox himself owns an alfalfa farm. Given that agriculture consumes the lion share of our water, does a “state of emergency” not demand that we rethink agricultural water use?
In 2013, former Governor Herbert asked the State Water Strategy Advisory Team to put together a 50-year recommended state water strategy, which was eventually published in 2017. The authors’ vision “sees Utahns working together to solve what may be one of the most daunting problems we have ever faced: how to stretch limited water supplies to meet the needs of the estimated six million people expected to call Utah home by the year 2060.”
It's an extensive document, organized by 11 key policy questions with recommended strategies to address each question. Question number three asks, “How does Utah provide water for agricultural lands and food production in the face of competing water demands?”
The authors acknowledge the complexity of the issue:
“In arid regions like Utah, agricultural viability requires that land and water be bound together, with food production as the most direct and primary beneficial use of agricultural water… [one] question is whether production of Utah hay products sold into international trade essentially constitutes an export of water that would be better redirected through local water markets to satisfy future water demands… Another question relates to the amount of water consumed in raising animal feed rather than food for direct human consumption…The biggest challenge faced by producers and critics alike is how to profitably produce more locally-grown food in a sustainable way with less water. A related question is how to compensate for the multiple social and environmental values that agricultural lands provide to the Utah landscape, economy, and culture.”
Utah grows between 2-3% of our own fruits and vegetables. We reached out to the Utah Department of Agriculture and Food (UDAF) to ask how they weigh support for growing alfalfa and promoting alfalfa exports with support for fruits and vegetables grown to feed Utahns. We spoke to Calli Forsyth, who markets Utah alfalfa on the global market and manages the USDA Specialty Crop Block Grant Program, which supports producers growing fruits and vegetables. She acknowledged that while some producers may be interested in growing more specialty crops (the USDA’s term for fruits and vegetables), finding reliable markets and distribution channels is a challenge and ultimately, alfalfa is where the money is. She outlined further challenges: UDAF doesn’t have enough specialty crop grants and the cost of getting into specialty crops is high, due mostly to the fact that specialty crops require more labor.
Hoping to find some reassurance from the agricultural experts at Utah State, we instead received their publication “Ten Reasons Why Alfalfa is highly suitable for the West.” (A conversation for another time, but our land-grant universities are being hijacked by Big Ag and typically lag far behind when it comes to sustainability). Reason number one, per the report, is “high water-use efficiency.” The authors state, “If you consider the water-use efficiency of alfalfa as harvestable biomass/applied water, alfalfa actually has greater water use efficiency than many other crops.” This assessment feels incredibly myopic. Is alfalfa an efficient crop if it doesn’t convert water directly into food for humans? What is “efficiency” when it comes to water use in agriculture in an increasingly water-scarce world? Is growing human food not a more efficient use of water than growing “harvestable biomass?” And if we factor in the serious environmental and health costs of beef consumption, does directing our water supply to alfalfa make sense in the long run?
A Nature Sustainability study conducted in 2020 found that in the Western United States, irrigated crops to feed cattle—alfalfa and grass—are the largest consumers of river water, “implicating beef and dairy consumption as the leading driver of water shortages.” The study adds that “long-term water security and river ecosystem health will ultimately require Americans to consume less beef that depends on irrigated feed crops.” Read: if we want to preserve our water supply, we need less alfalfa and probably less beef. Brian Richter, the president of Sustainable Waters and lead author of the study says of the water world, “agriculture is the 800-pound gorilla in the room” with “much of the opportunity and much of the need… to be found in irrigated farmland.” It’s no doubt a sticky conversation, given the American demand for beef, but it’s one we need to have if we want to responsibly steward our diminishing water resources here in the West.
Some Utah growers say alfalfa is their only option given its resilience to drought and colder climates—Richter has been featured in similar conversations around alfalfa production in Arizona. When asked if there are alfalfa alternatives that could make sense for Utah’s climate, he says there’s no easy answer but that it’s the right question. “This conversation needs to be focused and the volume needs to be turned up. It’s the conversation of the next decade.”
So what can be done? Richter underscores the importance of working with, not against farmers. Farmers are in a uniquely precarious position, he says. “Farmers are vulnerable, and the crops they’re growing are causing scarcity. But we’re not going to mandate in a regulatory manner a reduction in farmland use of water, so we have to look at incentives. We have to look at transitions that offer a sufficient length of time so that farming communities aren’t repulsed by the idea. We can talk about short-term compensation to incentivize saving water but we should also be communicating that over the next five to ten years, we need to be shifting away from the most water-intensive crops towards something else.”
He also stresses the urgent need to establish networks that enable this cross-sector thinking and to facilitate these conversations among stakeholders in water, agriculture, and government. “We’ve got to figure out how to make this work for the farmers and the ranchers. Producers must be involved in this conversation.”
After talking to Richter, UFC reached out to Steve Erickson, a local environmental policy legend and lobbyist for the Audubon Society, Sierra Club, and Great Basin Water Network. He painted a more complicated picture. Drawing from his experience working with alfalfa farmers out in the West Desert, Erickson said “it makes a good sound bite to say we’re exporting water but it doesn’t deal with the realities we’re facing on the ground. It’s a different equation when you’re out there in the middle of nowhere. We don’t want to take water and transport it out of these basins (like the Las Vegas Pipeline tried to do), we want to keep it local, so then it ends up being used for alfalfa.”
And not all alfalfa production should be considered equally. For some farmers, they have few, if any, alternatives. “There are some market economics at play here”, Erickson points out. “These places are remote. Three and half hours to Salt Lake and four hours to Vegas. If you were able to grow certain specialty crops, where are you going to sell them? It’s expensive to transport small quantities to market.” His bottom line: “The focus on our transition away from alfalfa shouldn’t be out in the hinterlands” like the West Desert. The farmers he’s worked with in the Snake Valley represent a minor piece of the overall alfalfa-growing picture. Instead, we need to look at transforming alfalfa farms closer to the urban centers, in places like Central Utah, Box Elder County, Rich County, and parts of the Uintah Basin. “Our best approach is to convince those farming on the urban fringe to start thinking about how they can change what they’re growing.”
And unless we help farmers transition to growing other crops, if we take land out of alfalfa production, it will likely be developed. “If you get rid of the farms and the people, if you dry up their existence and they have to leave, it will either become real-estate development—luxury homes, or even worse, it’ll be taken over by the military,” Erickson said.
As water scarcity becomes our new normal, we’re going to be much better off if we accept now that it’s time to think strategically about agricultural water use and what we’re growing. Rather than bemoan the amount of water going to agriculture, we ought to try and figure out how to make agriculture more beneficial (and relevant) for the majority of Utahns—that is, how to grow more food for humans in a way that stewards our water/land/soil and benefits farmers.
This won’t be a top-down process. These systemic shifts will require citizen advocacy, new conversations, and honest storytelling. The State Water Strategy Team highlights,
“The vision for Utah’s water future must include focused advocacy… Agricultural water users and other key stakeholders must be responsible advocates for our future water needs… The agricultural community must provide leadership for ongoing, effective programs that engage the broader community in water management and food production… Only the farmers and ranchers—those 0.8% of the Utah population directly engaged in production agriculture, those who labor daily and risk their all to bridge the gap between Mother Nature’s most extreme challenges and humanity’s constant and ever-increasing need for water, food, and fiber—can adequately express the challenges producers face. The other 99.2% of the population, whose very existence depends on the farmers and ranchers, need to know the challenges ahead.”
The Team also underscores the need for collaboration across state agencies, agricultural producers, government, research institutions, industry, nongovernmental organizations focused on land and water, and “especially, residents and consumers.”
This is where the Utah Food Coalition hopes to contribute. Our work is divided into three categories: education, both for the community—around the challenges facing our local food system—and for those working within the food system; policy advocacy to support the transition to a stronger local food system, including engaging eaters as citizen advocates; and cultivating connections and community among the various food system stakeholders and bringing people together around the joy of local food.
While farmers certainly ought to play a lead role in bringing about the necessary changes in our local food system, they’re incredibly busy. We need others to help tell their stories to the public and serve as a bridge to communities and leadership. Our vision is a Utah food system with increased access to and demand for locally grown food — where it’s easier for eaters to support local producers. For that to happen, eaters also must realize that alongside farmers, businesses, and government leaders, we each have a role to play in advocating for a more robust local food system and responsible water stewardship.
“[Fitting] the farming to the land,” Wendell Berry says in Bringing it to the Table, “is not a transformation that we can just drift into, as we drift in and out of fashions, and it is not one that we should wait to be forced into by large-scale ecological breakdown. It won’t happen if a lot of people—consumers and producers, city people and country people, conservationists, and land users—don’t get together deliberately to make it happen.”
Alfalfa in a Southern Utah field. Photo by Chandler Rosenberg.
Notes:
We’re just getting started, and we want the Utah Food Coalition to be a citizen-led project that represents the diverse perspectives in our community, which means we need you. If you’d like to organize with us or just share your ideas, drop us a line here.
We’ve got a volunteer opportunity coming up on Saturday, April 16th where we’ll be prepping two backyard farms in Rose Park installed last year with the Village Cooperative and Plant Based Utah. Sign up here if you’d like to garden with us!
For those interested in getting involved in local water advocacy, check out Save Our Great Salt Lake and the Utah Rivers Council.
More on this later, but soil health is critical for drought resilience and maximizing agricultural water efficiency. For every 1% increase in soil organic matter, soil can hold 20,000 more gallons of water per acre. The Utah Soil Health Partnership hosted the first-ever Soil Health in the West Conference earlier this year, which was a promising start. Still, we have a long way to go.
If you want to become more acquainted with the Utah farm community and the many challenges they face, follow Red Acre Center to learn about their advocacy efforts, and read about their recent activity in helping to connect and support fellow Utah farms in this article.
We aren’t the only ones thinking about the problems with our food system infrastructure. Read this article here from Malcom Harris for an affirming look at how American abundance is increasingly looking more like weakness, from the empty store shelves to the non-diverse, non-native, and non-seasonal appetites we’ve acquired over the last hundred years.
Photo from the Soil Health in the West Conference earlier this year by Chandler Rosenberg.