Episode 16: Agriculture in the California Borderlands
“The Imperial Irrigation District has one of the largest appropriations of water in the United States for irrigation purposes”
Jairo Diaz
A conversation with University of California Desert Research and Extension Center Director Dr. Jairo Diaz about water and agriculture in the Imperial Valley of California. Released April 16, 2021.
guests on the show
Dr. Jairo Diaz
Dr. Jairo Diaz is the director of the Desert Research & Extension Center of the University of California division of Agriculture and Natural Resources. His work focuses on irrigated agriculture in the low Desert region that encompasses the Imperial valley, Coachella valley, Mexicali valley, and Yuma, as well as 200 commodities. Dr. Diaz works on irrigation, nitrogen, and salinity management; as well as high impact extension and outreach programs that provide leadership development, training, and invited participation from underserved Borderland communities in agriculture and STEM. One example of Jairo’s work is the Farm Smart Program for K-12 youth in the area, which has reached over 168,000 people. Learn more about the low Desert region here and the Farm Smart Program here.
TRANSCRIPT
Sam Sandoval
Bienvenidos a water talk. In today's episode, we're talking about water and agriculture in Southern California, in the loudest region with our guest, Dr. Jairo Diaz. Jairo is the director of the National Research and Extension Center of the University of California Division of Agriculture and Natural Resources. In this episode, Jairo brings our attention to these very intertwined regions between Mexico, California and Arizona, depicting a clearer picture of agriculture in this area. Also he shares with us some programs that they are leading to bring regular citizens, women and underrepresented minorities closer to agricultural science. He really gives us a nice tour around the low desert region. Mallika, Faith - what do you like about this episode?
Mallika Nocco
I didn't know very much about the Imperial Valley. So it was really in once again being in a position right now where I can't travel there, I felt like Jairo really just painted a picture of this agricultural region that's in the southernmost part of our state, just because thinking about it as the Borderlands, this is our border, Borderlands agriculture. And it's very just interesting to me to think about how agriculture functions in a desert. And what some of the benefits are for us, which - I am someone who has bought green onions in January, and Jairo, it's great to hear about some of the work that he's doing in order to improve the efficiency of irrigation, and to figure out like how to do deficit irrigation on some of these crops that are really kind of filling that gap, when agriculture in the rest of our country is shutting down. So that part was super interesting.
And then it was just really interesting to me from a water perspective to hear about how do you do irrigated agriculture in the desert? And where's the water coming from? And how is it allocated, and who is growing the crops? Right, that part is fascinating, is how the economy is working, and where everyone lives and how far people are traveling across borders, to work verses to live so that that part was really fascinating to me.
Faith Kearns
I'm somebody who really loves that area of California. I'm originally from Arizona, and I've spent a lot of time in Yuma and driving to San Diego and driving to Mexico. And so I have a real fondness for the eclectic nature, you know…you're sort of bordered by Palm Springs on one side, and then you've got the Coachella Valley and Mexicali. And it's just an extremely rich and interesting area, the Salton Sea itself is just an absolutely very, very interesting part of the state. More than any other part of California, except maybe Los Angeles, that part of California is extremely tied into what happens in the Colorado River Basin, which is ties us to eight other states in this way that is very interconnected and has implications that really affect all of us in California, even though we don't think about the Colorado River a lot.
The other thing that's so interesting is coming off of having talked with Laura Snell, who's at the opposite end of the state and in a different Borderlands situation, and then talking to Jairo about all the the intersecting cultures and work and agriculture and all of it could not be more different from what's going on in the northern part of the state. So it's just, it's really interesting to hear from that diversity of perspectives about water in California.
Sam Sandoval
Yeah, and also the different team aspects. So the different programs that he is leading and trying to show from K-12 students all the way to citizens, how food is grown. And so they actually have a first hand experience and they go and pick up their vegetables or bring these communities to see how food is grown there.
Faith Kearns
Part of the conversation that I really enjoyed was you and Jairo talking about the cross border culture of work, which I know about from friends and also having been down there with Jairo. before. And it's just something, that makes that part of California unique in terms of the daily migration of workers.
Mallika Nocco
I like the term culture of work to describe what's happening, because that part was really very interesting and unfamiliar to me. And it just kind of made me think a lot about how families are functioning and what's important to people and the lengths that families will go to both live in a place where they can live and also provide, to take care of take care of everyone like that part was, was pretty, pretty interesting and just compelling to hear about.
The other part that I really liked about this episode is I really like Jairo, as a scientist, I think that just he really embodies kind of this like patience, this problem solving, he's a really good role model, in terms of how he's approaching science and how he's approaching people, and how he's also kind of thinking from a cultural standpoint about the region in which he is and how he can serve those communities.
Sam Sandoval
And so without further ado, let's say listen to our interview with Jairo. About growing food in the low desert.
Jairo Diaz
Thank you so much for the invitation, hello Mallika, Faith. I really appreciate this opportunity to talk about all the amazing things we have here in Southern California in the desert area.
Sam Sandoval
When people think of agriculture in California, the first region that comes to their minds, is the Central Valley. However, there is a highly productive agricultural area in the low desert region. Can you explain it to us? Where is the low desert region?
Jairo Diaz
The low desert region in California. We are part of the Sonoran Desert ecosystem. In that desert, there are parts of Mexico, Arizona, and California. The Lesser Sonoran desert region is so large, but it's so rich. The environment is…the summers so hot 120 Fahrenheit degrees, we can have a couple of months. But then the winters are so mild, where we can grow anything in the winter, and all year around, we can grow anything here. We have a really diverse agriculture from livestock feedlots, many feedlots we have in any part of the other region, even here, in Yuma Arizona, in Sonora, Mexico and also Baja California, Mexico.
We have plenty of forage crops like alfalfa, Sudan grass, and many other forages that grow year round and when we talk about vegetables, we talk about the carrots, green onions that are grown a lot in Baja, California. Naturally, those green onions produced in Baja California are 90% of what is consumed in Mexico. So it is a huge enterprise. When we talk about agriculture here in California’s low desert region, the farm value of the agriculture in between Yuma Arizona, Sonora, Mexicali, Baja, and Imperial Valley is about $9 billion. So, yes, the Imperial County farm value is about $2.2 billion. So it's really, really a big enterprise and it’s pretty diverse. When we combine all the whole agriculture in the low desert, we have about 200 agricultural commodities. Just to put it in perspective, when we talk about agriculture in California, we talk about 400 different agricultural commodities. So yes, in this region, we have 200. So it's very diverse, rich, we have small growers, and large agriculture as well. So we have everything- organic agriculture is something that is growing a lot too, especially vegetables.
Sam Sandoval:
Something that is interesting to think about is that we're growing food in the desert. So how is that possible? And where does the water come from?
Jairo Diaz
This is pretty amazing. I remember when you talk maybe when you are a kid or you talk about desert regions, the first thing is there is no water, there is no rain. But the Imperial County is located on the border with Arizona and Mexico. And this is an amazing corner. Because this is pretty much the tail of the Colorado River. Meaning that for hundreds of years, the Colorado River used to fill out all these valleys, Imperial Valley, the Mexicali Valley. So all these flow planes are so rich in soil, the soils are so rich, they have a lot of nutrients, because it drains from the Upper Colorado River watershed. So that's what it is, is there.
The river is the one that brought all the soils, high quality soils, brought by the water. Because our rain is so low - we have about three inches per year, sometimes we have one big storm, with one or two inches. So there is no rain. But there is plenty of water from the Colorado River. California has the largest allocation from the Colorado River at about 4.4 million acre feet of water. The allocation was divided among the different states and they divided about 16 million acre feet of water. So we have 4.4 million acre feet of water and the Imperial Irrigation District gets over three, 3 million acre feet of water. So basically these irrigation districts in Imperial County have one of the largest water appropriations in the states for irrigation purposes.
Sam Sandoval
Jairo, how does the region work? How does agriculture work in the low desert region? Can you explain it to us?
Jairo Diaz
Okay, as I said before, our weather patterns through the year are so diverse, for example, in the summers it's so hot - over 100 degrees, sometimes 120 we increase by 120 to 125 Fahrenheit, but the winters are so mild, say it's 50 degrees in the day. So sometimes we have frozen days, but not that many. So this means that we can grow things even in the winter. And we are the offseason growers where the north part of the United States is shut down for all the agriculture in the winter, we are still heavily producing things. For example, cabbage. Cabbage is trans-planted starting in October in the fields, then you start harvesting that through the winter season and then you can plant carrots then you can have spinach. So, us here in Imperial Valley along with Yuma, Arizona, we are now known because we are the winter salad bowl in the United States, basically all the salad that is in the supermarket in February, March, January, all that produce lettuce and many other things is finished right here in the valley, basically.
Sam Sandoval
I didn't know that many of the businesses, many of even the people, work throughout the region. And something that for me was an eye opening experience was once you and I went together to Mexicali Valley and basically when we crossed there, I was super surprised. We were in a packing company of green onions. I remember seeing all these trucks of green onions coming to the same facility, this huge barn cleaning the green onions and then packing them into coolers and large refrigerators the size of big rooms. Then when I was seeing all of that, wait a minute, I saw some of the boxes from Oxnard that they were pack these green onions there. To me it was surprising and also seeing different parts of the people working there and so on. So could you tell us a little bit about production in the Mexicali Valley and how it is also put together with some of the production in Imperial Valley?
Jairo Diaz
Yeah, so let's talk about that. Right now I’m located in the Desert Region Extension Center located in El Centro. We have a couple of cities around us here in Imperial County. I live in El Centro, about 20 minutes from the valley. So just to give you some perspective, you might have about 15 minutes to Mexicali, which is the other side of the border, which is about 20 minutes south for us. So as you can see, in less than one hour, you covered our rich agricultural area. The other thing is you cross a state, you can go to Arizona in 50 minutes and you can go south to Mexico in 20 minutes - you cross the border into a different country. So the three areas are connected.
For example, in Mexico, salaries are so low. That's why we have so many people crossing the borders in the morning, they cross the borders, do their job here and then go back to Mexico. Sometimes, people here in Imperial County work here, but they live in Yuma because Arizona is cheaper. The cost of living in Arizona is cheaper, but the wages are lower than here. So the higher wages are in California, then in Arizona, then we have Mexico. So people move around in families as well. This is a big family basically. Because among Mexicali there is about a 1.5 million population. The county's population is about 180,000, and in Yuma, Arizona is about 200,000. It's a medium sized large city in Mexicali, but people know they have families and relatives all around. So they share resources, they find out the way to live around. So the pool of labor, comes pretty much from Mexico, basically, pretty much every day, especially in the winter season, where more labor is needed for harvesting, and all the activities that are required. People cross the border to work here, they follow these regulations here.
But some growers in companies have other areas in Mexicali too, because their Mexicali values are quite large, as well. And so what they decided, or what they figured it out is okay, the crops that are more labor intensive, we are going to put them in Mexicali because doing this is way cheaper. One day of wages here in California means maybe about 10 days of work in Mexico, so as you can imagine, this is a huge difference. Putting those labor intensive crops Mexicali like green onions is all about labor for harvesting, there are no machines for harvesting that thing. They have it over there, but they export those produced here, they follow all the regulations so that the produce is high quality because those companies follow pretty much the regulations for the United States. So it's high quality food. And it's the same with Arizona. So in the example with Arizona, this is the same, sometimes you might not recognize the volume of produce for the winter. But this is the thing, because in Arizona energy costs are lower than here. So they produce what is harvested here, they move it to Arizona for the coolboxes because the energy prices are lower there. So it's about figuring out a way to produce at the lowest cost at a high quality.
Sam Sandoval
This is very interesting in terms of what you started to explain this as a region that operates together and that finds the strength as a feature of these different pieces.
Jairo Diaz
This is a big puzzle. I guess it is good that the people understand it’s like living in a big city, where the industries and so on the people that were in the industry, most of the time they take their commutes for maybe two hours, three hours. So they prefer just to cross the border every day, every morning. That crossing each way - it takes hours. For example, sometimes they start the line for crossing the border at one in the morning, two in the morning. So they cross the border, maybe three, four hours, and then they are getting ready on the California side. That is a path that takes the labor to the fields, and at the end of the day they go back. So all that is because there are a lot of people that are binational, they have, they are US citizens, but also, they are Mexican, they have a Mexican citizenship as well, or there's our permanent residents, so they have a work visa. That works really well here in the valley.
The other thing too that people are not maybe not aware of is about the languages. Because we are here in California, in this corner is English and Spanish, no matter what, sometimes I go places where I can see that people only speak English, but suddenly somebody just speaks Spanish, but people do the effort to communicate with, there are no barriers here in languages. Or maybe you are speaking in Spanish. That's what I missed the most because I used to live in Mississippi for 11 years. And the Latino community over there is just 1-2%. So if you don't speak English, you cannot communicate. My mother language is Spanish. So I was so concerned about the people that only speak Spanish in places where they cannot communicate that that's terrible by hitting the border. It's not a big deal. People understand those things that you see it in Spanish and English in both. So people make the efforts.
Sam Sandoval
Thanks, Jairo. We went really right into the low desert region area. But I do want to also ask you -you're the director of the Desert Research and Extension Center. So can you explain to us a little bit more about what is there and what are the research projects that you are hosting there and some of the outreach events that you have?
Jairo Diaz
Well, I'm so pleased to be the director there, let me give you a richer sense of the center. Just to give you some history on this center. First, the center is the oldest Research and Extension Center in the University of California system, we were established back in 1912. We share the senior water rights with the growers in the region. And that was the vision back in the time that this region, the moment that we got the water from the Colorado River division was this would be a region that is going to produce a lot of food, not only for the states, but for the world. Starting with that vision, the center has been moving through the years and is having research that is needed for the region.
We also have a lot of projects on irrigation, because as I say, we have the largest irrigation - this is the largest water appropriation for the Colorado River. So, that means that a lot of people are looking at us given the region because the west of the United States a lot of people are moving to big cities, San Francisco, Los Angeles, San Diego, and many other places in the West, but the western of the United States is so dry. So, people in the cities need water. So, when they see us using all these water resources here, they are looking to see if they can take some of this water because water has been transferred from the valley to LA San Diego even in Mexicali water has been transferred to Tijuana. That is huge system and pumps that move water through the mountains in goes to to Tijuana. A lot of irrigation research is conducted in our Center for example, I wanted to see how we can be more effective and more efficient using irrigation in nutrients on our own so that we can really target an effective amount of water along with nitrogen amounts so that we have high quality and high quantity audience.
I have been talking with growers and they say Jairo, here we are really committed, we want to use the best technology to use our resources, but we are focused on high quality and high quantity of produce. They are really committed to use really resources to produce the most plants. So focusing on that that helped us at the end the growers to say okay, you can use these techniques and then you can produce this amount, and you have high quality and you are not wasting water or wasting nutrients that at the end of the day, all that excess water or nutrients goes to to the Salton Sea, which is the endpoint of the runoff, and in the excess of water from this valley from Mexicali, and the Salton Sea is the most polluted lake that we have in California.
All this research that is conducted in our center about irrigation between management is all about to keep high production, high quality as well. But using the right amount of resources for the research is conducted on alfalfa. Forage crops here in the valley are the largest group of crops that we have, I bet that about half of the land is all about forage. Alfalfa is close to 200,000 acreage, in the valley. So it's a large portion, in alfalfa grass all year around meaning that in the summer it’s gonna require water. Researchers have been focusing on how to use drip irrigation, we use drip irrigation in our alfalfa to have high production quality. That's the research that is conducted, how deep the drip tape has to be sterile, how separate has to be the drip lines as well.
The other thing that we do a lot is we have an educational program that we call Farm Smart. So this program was established in our center more than 15 years ago, this program is really focused on bringing all this information in a really easy way, but clear, using science based information to create awareness from the little ones to the adults. So, in an event year, we can bring about 7-8000 people to our center. We have groups of kids coming to our center and maybe 50-60 kids that when they come to our center, we have community educators, a specialist, so that they have activities, all about hands on activities, music, painting, and then we have a garden. And we take the kids in a wagon, we take it to the field so that they can harvest, they can harvest carrots, they can label so they have the moment of recognizing where the food is coming from. And that is the value of agriculture here as well. We also have programs tailored for adults as well.
This region is also recognized along with Yuma because a lot of people from up north, they’re not birds, they can't fly to the south to spend the winter, because the winter is so nice. We have a lot of visitors that spend a lot of months in the winter here. So we have programs for them for the outdoors. And we will explain to them that there is agriculture in the valley in how we irrigate what kind of produce we have? What is the impact of that agriculture? So that's a huge program that we call Farm Smart. And the other thing with our Farm Smart program is that we really need more underserved communities getting into agriculture, and STEM science, technology engineering and math careers, as maybe you and others have been experiencing when we go to meetings in either is all about males these meetings about science technology is conducted even for calculation of maize, but we don't see a good representation of proportional representation of women in those, Black people or Latinos or from other countries or from other backgrounds. So there is a lot of, we work a lot on that to really be the bridge to to bring more Hispanics and underserved communities and women into the fields of agriculture, science, technology, engineering and math. So that's why as far as not, is a really highly recognized program not only for California but for support in the States.
Faith Kearns
Thank you so much. I have one other question, which was about climate change and just thinking about both the crops that are grown in Imperial County and then also thinking about the effects of climate change on the Colorado River and the Colorado River Basin itself in terms of water delivery. And so I'm just wondering how you are thinking about and researching Climate change climate change adaptation in that region.
Jairo Diaz
Okay, that question about climate change? I am glad that you put it that way. Because one thing is the Colorado River Basin. And the other thing is the valley, which is an arid watershed. So basically, I think 80 to 90% of the runoff from the Colorado River Basin is coming from the snow melt. So every year we are crossing our fingers that that winter is gonna bring a lot of snow, and then over the spring in the summer is going to be the melting of that water, and fill reservoirs. But with climate change and climate variability, we are over two decades of continuous drought.
In the last 20 years, the amount of runoff in the upper watershed has been less than the average. So basically, we are using our savings from those reservoirs, Lake Mead and Lake Powell, because we are not getting the average, the average is about 80 years ago, something like that was 16 million acre feet. But it has been less than that in the last 20 years. So basically, we are living out of the savings because those reservoirs can hold four times the average the Colorado River Basin. So that's a big impact. One thing is the way that the Colorado River was allocated for Imperial County growers, they have the senior water rights. That means that the junior all the water rights that are all the states that are going to be impacted first, if there are any water reductions.
We are going to be the last visit in terms of the climate change here in Imperial County. I haven't seen some reports that say that, okay, we are going to get hit, we are going to be harder. I guess the heat is gonna improve alfalfa yields, you're gonna get a little bit more. But I don't know how to see it for the summer, where we have 120 Fahrenheit degrees maybe for three months, it's going to be just a slight amount, then there are the winters. I know we have been getting some showers, heavy showers in the fall and the winter. Things are not that easy to see where we produce food.
Faith Kearns
Thank you so much Jairo. I've been talking to different people around the state and it's always just so interesting to hear kind of the mix of what's really affecting farm operations between climate change water and labor. And it seems like where you are in the state, that mix can change a little bit. So I appreciate hearing about it in your region. Thank you.
Sam Sandoval
I'm thankful for your description of the region, the low desert region that is in California, it is actually a transboundary inter state region that if you're eating green vegetables in winter, yeah, they come from there. So what would you like the listeners to know about what you do? And how can we support your work Jairo?
Jairo Diaz
Thank you, Sam. One thing that we need to really work together is all about food security. Because one thing that we do as humans is eat, and if you wake up you want a piece of bread, or an apple or whatever it's about food. So we need to really get the news that food security is important. What is food security is that we keep investing in having agriculture hidden in our country, along with having really good partners, like Canada in Mexico, because we share all these regions. We are just one region, especially here in the south, but I know that is so important also partners in Canada for all things.
I just wanted to tell the people that if you eat, we need your help, so that we can keep moving forward investments in agriculture in the state. That is all about food security, we cannot depend on others. Because it has been many years that the United States has been the lead on technology and in producing food for not only for us, but also for others. And we have all that capacity. Just imagine that we can bring water from the Colorado River. And we can call that water, those big reservoirs over there, Lake Mead, and Lake Powell, that they can hold four times the average runoff, or the watershed.
Those investments happened many years ago. And that was the opening gate for the west of the United States. Without holding that water, there are impacts, I'm not going to argue that there aren’t impacts on that. But that opens the gate for the western United States to move forward with those investments. That was a huge investment, they figured out that without holding that water, then distributed water. And now we can see the jewel. This is all about the US, so the people can understand that it's so important to support farmers at all scales, farmers that are small, medium, large, in support of our agriculture, so that we can continue, moving our lives, having high quality produce, in high yields in the state. So, I just wanted to mention that so that the people when they have the power to make decisions. They put food as one of the major things that we have to protect in our state in the United States.
Sam Sandoval
Jairo, it's been a pleasure. Muchas Muchas gracias and yeah, thanks for sharing all these insights with us. Thank you and we'll see you around.
Jairo Diaz
Thank you, Sam. Thank you, Sam. I really appreciate it has been fun talking with you. I hope that we can continue our friendship and working together.