Yuma, have continued to have access to necessary water supply from the Colorado River because of early water rights. Growers in the Yuma region have been mindful of their use throughout the years and are present to the resource’s value. “They have been extremely efficient,” Medler said, “and have continued to become more efficient with the use of water, use less water, get a substantially larger amount of product using less water…That’s the right way you want it to go. Substantially less water use. More product. They continue to go down that road.” The environmental challenges associated with the Colorado River will always be a maze of complexity, built with the varied needs and perspectives of different players in different regions. The way through may be currently muddled in discussions and negotiations, but one thing is clear, growers will continue to accomplish the impossible: growing more with less and utilizing technology to get use out of every drop and to see the system and their role in it through a long lens. Jack Vessey, President of Vessey & Co. in the Imperial Valley, shared insight from a company that just celebrated its centennial last year: “My dad, about 15 years ago, he had the forethought and said, ‘There’s going to be an issue here.’ There was a growing population, and we weren’t necessarily in a drought, but we had been
through some droughts, nowhere near where we are today. That’s when we started investing in some more irrigation pipe and started to focus on really watching our water a little more closely than we ever have in the past.” Vessey & Co. isn’t an anomaly when it comes to being aware and proactive about changes in resources in the grower community. Many are keeping an eye on emerging technologies to boost efficiency with less. Companies like Netafim’s drip irrigation technology and Agrology’s
machine learning and artificial intelligence platform are two examples of the entrepreneurial and technological pieces to the possible solution puzzle. Many farmers agree that they are key players when it comes to finding a solution to a depleting water supply. For a cultural system to continue to flourish, people need to have access to good food. Cutting a vital resource to the people who grow that food isn’t an option. As Delihant said: “We can’t grow food out of thin air.”
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MARCH | APRIL 2023
Western Grower & Shipper | www.wga.com
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