Water Chats — Bowles Farm
Submitted by Aguanomics Blog
During my water chats in the central valley last week, I spoke to 5th and 6th generation farmers at Bowles Farming Company (BFC) of Los Banos, CA.
The first chat was with Cannon Michael [51 min; 18MB MP3], a young (37 yo) farmer who shares his thoughts on water marketing (he’s pro), farm subsidies (he’s con) and how long he has to wait for tomato supply to meet his demand (150 days vs. 15 minutes for me…)
My second chat was with Phil Bowles [46 min; 17MB MP3], Cannon’s uncle and a farmer for the past 30 years. Before Phil was a farmer, he worked in commercial television in NYC. Phil is thoughtful (and a frequent commentator here), and our discussion ranges far and wide. (We have an interesting talk about their “private” wildlife refuge.)
Note that Bowles and Michael are descendants of the Henry Miller, one of the most prominent ranchers of California’s nineteenth century.
Also note that BFC grows a lot of cotton. Why? BFC gets its water from the San Luis Canal Company, which is one of four member agencies of the San Joaquin River Water Authority Exchange Contractors (SJRWAECs).
The SJRWAECs have better water rights in the area because they exchanged their historic water rights on the San Joaquin river for rights at Lake Shasta. The Bureau of Reclamation offered to make this exchange because it wanted to leave the historic water on the east side of the Valley and deliver (”in exchange”) water to SJRWAECs on the west side. As part of the deal, SJRWAEC rights are much more stable. In a year where most BurRec contractors to the Central Valley Project are getting 10 percent of their water allocation, SJRWAECs are getting 100 percent — and they are selling water!
Bottom Line: Listen to these chats to hear how farmers manage their business when they have good water rights.
