<
https://www.hcn.org/articles/south-agriculture-can-retiring-farmland-make-californias-central-valley-more-equitable>
"The people of Fairmead, California, in the Central Valley, have struggled to
gain reliable access to drinking water for years. The unincorporated community
of around 1,300 — “mostly people of color, people of low income, people
struggling and trying to make it,” according to Fairmead resident Barbara
Nelson — relies on shallow wells to meet its needs. But in recent years, the
combination of drought and excessive agricultural pumping has caused some
domestic wells to go dry, and one of the town wells is currently very low.
Last year, Fairmead received a grant to help plan for farmland retirement in
order to recharge groundwater under California’s Sustainable Groundwater
Management Act, or SGMA. But the community’s vision for the future is bigger
than that: The locals also want to see improved air quality, a community center
and reliable domestic wells.
The West is not just facing an energy transition, it is also at the beginning
of a major transition in land and water use. In California’s Central Valley,
groundwater regulations will require retiring between 500,000 and 1 million
acres by 2040. (Retirement, or “fallowing,” refers to taking lands out of
agricultural production.) The planning and decision-making now underway across
more than 260 regional Groundwater Sustainability Agencies will determine how
SGMA plays out across different groundwater basins: whether landowners will be
compensated for retired lands, what the lands will become and who will manage
them, and how counties will replace the revenues they currently collect from
agricultural lands and use to help provide services to residents in need."
Via
The Fixer June 14, 2023:
<
https://reasonstobecheerful.world/stem-skills-science-education-australia/>
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
