Devastating Drought: As heat intensifies, farmers are cutting back

MORELAND, Idaho (KIFI)  – This year’s severe drought is forcing farmers to hold back, planting less crops and restricting irrigation to 40 percent of their water rights.

Moreland farmer Adam Young says his farm has cut 200 acres from production, while neighboring farmers are leaving as much as 50 percent of their land unplanted to stay within their water limits.

“I've got several other neighbors who are facing similar situations that are, at least in the current year, more drastic – where they've had to fallow up to half of their ground just to be able to stay within the limitation that were that were placed under,” said Young, who raises wheat, barley and hay.

Young just harvested his first hay crop, but has had to adapt what he plants due to the drought conditions.

“On those acres that we are watering, we're adhering to a very strict and quite a low limit of about 1.6 acre-feet per acre,” Young said. “... That's less water than you need to grow a good crop of alfalfa. It's a very tight supply of water for growing a crop of wheat, and it's a sufficient supply for growing barley. So for us, we have made the decision to take water off of our more marginal ground so that we can take that very low limit and apply it to our most profitable and economical acres.”

Low precipitation this winter has accelerated dire conditions across the state.

“It's been really tough. It's tough to have successive years of dry weather like we've had. We came out of this winter with a historically low snowpack,” Young said. “We got precipitation, but most of it came in the form of rain. That's a problem when we're looking at filling reservoirs and on using that water throughout the season.”

The water scarcity is forcing hard decisions.

“In a year like this, every drop of water matters,” said Vice Chair of Idaho Ground Water Appropriators Lynn Carquist, a multigenerational Idaho farmer in a release. “Surface water users are feeling the effects of low snowpack right away, and everyone is working to adapt. Groundwater users are doing what Idaho farmers always do — tightening operations, making careful decisions and working together to use what water we have as efficiently as possible.”

On the ground in eastern Idaho farms, that means calculating the best use for water.

"Does it make sense to drop off some ground here so that it can apply that water to these other acres?" Young asked. "Some farmers have the opportunity to take canal shares that they haven't been using up 'til this point," he said. "Then when the water is available, irrigate using those canal shares and then switch back on the ground water when when the canal water dries up."

With a super El Niño arriving next year, the dry conditions could further intensify.

"One of the frustrating things or discouraging things is that we may be looking at another dry year next year. I hope that the forecasts turn out to be incorrect and that we do get some snow on the mountains, but we have to be clear-eyed about the real possibility that we're going to face a third dry year and all the challenges that that's going to bring."