Irrigation Technology Advances, but Where’s the Water?
As the pages of this month’s magazine show, July is Smart Irrigation Month. The Irrigation Association uses this month as a time to introduce new technology and remind growers and producers about smart, water efficient practices. We have also focused on company’s that offer innovative solutions to all of your irrigation needs.
It’s really an exciting time in the area of water distribution and management. Never before have so many options existed to provide these levels of precision water application. And truly, it couldn’t have come at a more critical time.
As I’ve shared in the past, my home state – and much of the nation – is facing a major water crisis. In the past few weeks, water has floated from center stage in the mainstream media to the second act. Crises of even greater proportions have captured our collective fleeting attention span and the general public may not be aware that nothing has actually changed – we are still at red alert for water.
I had a quick reminder this past weekend as a total stranger and I chatted on the sidewalk outside a local market. She was from Atlanta, Georgia and our conversation began innocently enough as we admired each other’s dog (she had a Weimaraner, I have a Great Dane). As these chats tend to go, we then each lamented the weather. My brain was jostled back into “water catastrophe” mode when she mentioned that since being gone for a week, Atlanta had experienced severe thundershowers and rain.
She was blessed not to be there with the dog since he doesn’t do well in storms, but immensely grateful that the rain had finally come given the drought they’ve been in. Mind you, living in California my scope tends to be pretty centric to here and I wasn’t even aware that the Atlanta-region was in a drought. It just proved my own point, though, that all of us across this country are battling water issues.
And the thing that brings equal parts sadness and frustration is there appears to be no logical, tempered end in sight. Politicians and regulators, farmers and environmentalists, urbanites and suburbanites continue to be at a logger-head over what to do. At both the federal and state levels, policies are being crafted with the intention of pleasing one of these groups. Unfortunately, please one means angering the others.
I’m beginning to feel a bit like a broken record or squeaky wheel. I suppose there’s something to be said for consistently repeating the same message in the hope that at some point, my advice is heeded. I also know that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing multiple times and expecting different results.
Having said that I will once again remind each of you to take an active stance in the fight to ensure that water is equitably distributed to meet every need – those of agriculture, towns and cities and Mother Nature. There must be a balanced approach to the distribution and transportation of this precious resource. We, in agriculture in particular, absolutely must stop fighting against one another and find a shared common ground on which to stand.
Water is our lifeblood in every sense of the word. It fuels our bodies, our land and our economy. Tackling the water wars will be a boon to this recession. It will also be a victory that our children’s children will read about in history books. Smart Irrigation Month reminds us that ingenuity and creativity have once again prevailed to assist us in being good stewards of this precious resource. If we could only guarantee there will be water to steward……
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