COLLEGE STATION — Texas farmers and ranchers will have unprecedented opportunities to chart their future in the next 50 years in light of predicted water shortages, a Texas Agricultural Extension Service agricultural engineer said.
Texas is expected to fall short in meeting water demands: some say by the year 2050, the state’s water demand will be 20.95 million acre-feet per year. However, the groundwater and surface water supply projected will fall short by 6.04 million acre-feet, enough water to cover the entire state of New Hampshire to a depth of one foot.
“Existing supplies will not meet the demand,” said Dr. Bruce Lesikar of College Station.
It is expected that the shortfall will be met through more efficient agricultural, landscaping and household practices, waste water reuse, development of new resources, or reducing the amount used on irrigated crops.
Already, irrigated agriculture use is predicted to drop to 5 million acre-feet of water from the current 11.1 million acre-feet of water. Still, Lesikar predicted, about 17 percent of the irrigation demand will go unmet.
“Our water path is not really charted,” Lesikar said. “We have the opportunity to change how our water picture looks in the future, either by increasing the amount of waste water that we use for the irrigation of crop land or turf grass areas and using more potable water resources for meeting other demands.”
Lesikar urged farmers to consider water as a commodity.
“When we start considering water as a commodity, we will be looking at what is the best use of that water resource,” he said. “It may be more profitable for the farmer to actually sell the water to other sectors than it is for him to use the water to grow an agricultural crop.”
For instance, urban water consumers pay from $1 to $2 per 1,000 gallons of water in the first part of their water usage; then $2 to $4 per 1,000 gallons as they get up into a higher water usage and rate structure. That could increase to $4 to $6 per 1,000 gallons as water becomes more precious and alternative technologies are needed to treat the water to drinking water quality, he said.
If a farmer purchased his water for 65 cents per gallon and he grew a crop that required 2 acre-feet of water, or 650,000 gallons, to grow, his water cost would be $422 per acre. On the other hand, the farmer could sell the water to the municipality, resulting in a profit of $422.
The city could then transport the water, pay for the pipeline to bring it to the city and sell the water and still cover their infrastructure costs, he said.
The farmer could then use that land to grow dryland crops or could sell just a portion of his water and irrigate a smaller section of land, and still have an annual income coming from the sale of the water.
Lesikar warned, “If you sell the right to the water, you get a one-time sale to the city. So it would be better to lease your water or sell it on an annual basis rather than selling the right to the water.”
Not everyone will have this option to sell water; however, farmers near major cities may wish to consider this.
Water deficits also may be met through new technologies being developed for water treatment, allowing the use of saline groundwater resources or the Gulf of Mexico as supplies. There also may be a shift in the types of crops being produced from those that use more water to those that use less.
Farmers have been switching to more efficient means of irrigation over the last two decades, said Dr. Guy Fipps of College Station, Extension agricultural engineer.
“One change we’re seeing is the abandonment of furrow irrigation and a switch to center pivot irrigation,” Fipps said. Long used on the Texas High Plains, the more-efficient center pivot method is being adapted widely in Southwest Texas. These types of systems put the water where the crop needs it, either on the surface of the ground or under the surface.
Lesikar added, “With irrigation scheduling, we can calculate what the water demand is for that crop and apply that water at the time the crop needs it or store the water in the soil profile. We get the maximum return on the water invested in the crop production.”
Texas reached its peak of irrigated acreage in 1974 with 8.4 million acres, Fipps said. In 1997, the total irrigated acreage in the state was 5.1 million acres, about 13 percent of the total. The drop was largely due to more efficient irrigation technology, higher input costs and volatile crop prices.
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