ExclusiveFarmer Explains The Root Cause of California's Water Shortage | Mark Nakata

What's the future for California's farmers? Bleak. We think that it is by design. It's not simply water. The big issue is the government is trying to overtake. On the one hand, you have the government regulating the amount of water that farmers can pump. On the other hand, the same government is allowing literally millions of acre-feet per day that we're running out to the ocean. It's not the farmers that are the problem, it's the state that's the problem. Hello and welcome to Bay Area Innovators. I'm your host, Steve Espos. Our guest today is Mark Nakata, a fifth generation farmer whose family emigrated from Japan to California in the late 1800s. He's also the president of the California United Water Coalition. Our discussion today will be about the importance of farming in California and the everlasting challenge of having enough water for farming. Also, how the state policies are affecting all of this. Mark, welcome to our program. Thank you. Thank you for having me. I appreciate it. So I want to ask you about farming and agriculture and the water. You're a farmer. You've been here so long. Yes. You know, most people when they think of farming, they think of whole foods. They go to sprouts. They look for the fresh vegetables. That's kind of how far their thinking goes. Now, the last couple of years, pretty much, we had a lot of water. We have a very wet season. Rain this whole weekend is raining today. Is it fair to say that all the problems are solved for our water supply? No. Why is that? Well, the state of California is operating under what they call SIGMA. And SIGMA was intended, when it started, was intended to help bring groundwater imbalances into balance. So the idea was good when it started, but like many things, it got politicized. Now what's going on is the state is using SIGMA as a vehicle by which to take water from farmers. Now, on the one hand, you have the government regulating the amount of water that farmers can pump. On the other hand, the same government is allowing the water that does fall from the sky to run out to the ocean. So we're not saving water. And so we're having big problems in farming because there's just not enough water. And we think that it is by design. It's not simply water. In other words, water is not the big issue. The big issue is the government is trying to overtake. And it's something that if you have been watching the papers and you're watching what Governor Newsom is saying, he's being somewhat honest about it in saying that while we want to retire one million acres of farmland every year, he's doing it. So let's go back to SIGMA a little bit. So explain that to our viewers what it means. So you have water in the rivers, you have water from floods, from rain. How does it work? Okay, so it starts with the premise that the government owns all the water. Water that falls from the sky, the government owns it all. Has it always been like that? No, not at all. So farmers, when they bought their farms like when my family bought our farms, we understood that the water that is in the ground underneath our feet is something we get to pump, we get to use. And then back in the 70s and 80s, the state restricted our ability to get surface water. Now surface water comes to us via canals. It is water that is stored in reservoirs and then distributed to farms for farming purposes. Well, a lot of that was taken in the 1970s, 1980s. Then the government decided, no, that's not enough. When SIGMA started, the government decided, well, any flood water is ours. Furthermore, all the water that's in the ground is ours. You farmers own none of it. You can't use it. So what's going on now is the state is in the process of putting sub-basins on probation. The first one they're going to do is next two months in April. And that sub-basin, when it goes on probation, they're going to restrict the ability to pump to one acre foot per acre. Now, it takes four to five acre feet of water per acre to grow a crop. So when they restrict you down to one acre foot an acre, then you basically can only farm 20% of your land. Furthermore, for every acre foot you go above that one acre foot, the penalties start at $1,000 an acre foot. Now, the problem with that, of course, is that farmers make a couple of hundred dollars an acre. Not an acre foot, but an acre. So if you take, let's say, four acre feet, and you allowed one, that means you're going to go in penalty for three acre feet per acre, which is $3,000 an acre. So the penalty ends up being more than you make of that land. And if you don't pay the fine, the government takes over your land. They foreclose on you and take your land. But that's by design. In other words, like I said, on the one hand, the government is restricting farmers' ability to pump water. The only reason the farmers are pumping water is because they ran out of surface water. In other words, the government restricted the surface water, so farmers had to turn to pumping groundwater. Farmers would much rather take surface water. That's the preferred way to take water. But when the government takes all the surface water, it says, well, we're not going to let you have any more surface water. And this changed in 2014? This changed, well, it started changing in the 70s and 80s when they started taking the surface water. And most of the excuse for taking the water was for fish, right? But in essence, they've not saved any fish. But that was never the idea. The idea was to take the water. So when you say take the water, it means you have the canal or there's the river and farmers are not allowed to use it. You can't put a pump in there or you're going to get a penalty. Right, exactly. In other words, if you look at last year, last year was a historic year in California. The state let all that water run out to the ocean. So there were literally millions of acre feet per day that were running out to the ocean. Wow. Of which the state saved nothing. The only water that got saved was what fell in the reservoir, right? The state had no groundwater activities. The state did not come to farmers and say, you know what, we want you to take this water, we want you to put this water in the ground. No. Let it all run out to the ocean. Farmers wanted to take the water. They wanted to put water in the ground. But they're restricted because of state law. In other words, let's say that I'm a farmer and I want to get some of this flood water, okay? I have to put an application in with the state. I have to pay $6,000, put in the application, and I'll know somewhere between 10 months and a year. If you're even allowed to do it. If I'm allowed to do it. So in effect, it's the state saying you can't, right? Then when Metropolitan Water Association made an announcement that they were against this severe restriction from the state, all of a sudden Governor Newsom, within 36 hours, lifted that penalty. And said, well, you could pump, right? However, we're going to put these restrictions on your pumping. There's a long list of restrictions, right? Even at that, farmers took a lot of water and put a lot of water in the ground. The state put none. It's farmers that put the water in the ground. These same farmers that are supposedly the bad guy are the ones putting the water in the ground. Not only for themselves, but for their communities. So, who's the good guy, who's the bad guy? So what is the explanation? You mentioned fish, right? But if it's flood water, that's not going to be for the fish, right? Because fish don't need the flood water. But the state would say that you can't take the flood water. Because, first of all, they own it. Second of all, fish might get caught in your screen or your pump. Now, the funny thing is, these flood channels are dry unless it's raining. So there's no fish in there, right? And so, yet, one of the restrictions is when you put a pump in a flood canal, you have to put a fish screen on the pump, right? That's just one thing. Second of all, when you put a pump in a flood canal, you're paying diesel or you're paying electricity to pump that water. The state doesn't reimburse you. It's an expense. The farmers pay. Not for their own benefit, but to put water back in the ground for their community. Because that water, let's say that I'm a farmer and I'm putting water in the ground. That water doesn't stay underneath my feet because water underground moves just like water on top of the ground moves. So I can't restrict it to my land. So I'm not putting this water in the ground simply for my benefit. I'm doing it because I'm a member of the community and I want my community to survive. That's why I'm doing it. And that's why thousands of farmers up and down the state have done this. They paid the expense. They made the effort. They put the water in the ground. Not just for themselves, but for their entire communities. Meanwhile, the state's done nothing but stand in our way. So you've got to ask yourself, who's the good guy? Who's the bad guy? So basically, all this water that is coming from all this rain, what percentage goes to the ocean? It's like 90, 90-some percent. Yeah, most of it. The only water that doesn't go to the ocean goes into the reservoirs. And then if you watch this last summer, the state released most of the water out of the reservoirs to the ocean. Yeah, let's talk about the reservoirs. The reservoirs now seem to be full. Right. And they were full last year too. And you're saying they were empty between last year? Yeah, if you look at like in February, they were filling up. Long about April after the flood stopped, the state started releasing that water. Not for farmers, but they released it out to the ocean. Now, you may ask, well, why'd they release it? Right? Good question. Because they're flushing sewage. Now, anybody, anybody could take an empty water bottle, they go to the local body of water, they can take a sample, take it down to a lab, have them test it. You'll be shocked at what's in it. The state and all these municipalities intentionally flush water because they're trying to eliminate the sewage, trying to get the sewage out. So if you look at all these algae blooms that we're seeing up and down the coast, right? Yeah. That's from sewage. Now, the state says, oh, it's farmers letting nitrates get into the water. That's a bunch of hooey. It's the municipalities and the state that's flushing sewage. Is it because the sewage plants are not able to do the work? What happens is each sewage plant, it has a limit to its capacity. It has an upper capacity, right? And they can only get rid of that water so quickly. So when water's coming in faster than it's going out, at some point they have to start releasing. So what happens is when you get times of high, a lot of rain, they're releasing treated and untreated sewage out to the river. But they're not telling you. Because I will tell you, very logically, if they weren't doing that, then how is all this sewage getting in these bodies of water? It's not fertilizer nitrates. It's raw human sewage. As an example, in our area, we have mountains and we have mountain communities. And in these mountain communities, they have sewage problems. Because what happens is this raw sewage from these septic systems leaks into the bodies of water. Now you have contaminated bodies of water that are high mountain lakes. There's no farming up there. There's zero farming up there. Right? It's not fertilizers. It's sewage. So when the rain comes, all this sewage gets into the bodies of water and then they release the water after the rain, right? But that's the water that's already contaminated. Well, you have to, if you have a high concentration, let's say, in order to lower the concentration, you got to release. So the water in these reservoirs may not be totally clean, but it's cleaner than what's in the river. So try this out. So they got the sewage. The problem is they want to reestablish the salmon or some species of fish. If you look at the amount of oxygen that those fish need, it's high. Well, when you have sewage in the water, you can't have oxygen. Because the sewage eats up the oxygen. So the salmon won't survive anyway. That's why they've been trying to get salmon to come up the San Joaquin River for, what, 40 years? Not one has made it. Not one. They've released millions of salmon. Whereas if there's no oxygen and that salmon can't survive, that's why. So I'm hearing about these proposals for consumers to pay more for water so they save more water. What are your thoughts on that? Well, what it is is the state is trying to eliminate farms, eliminate farmers. The excuse is, well, we need water for people. But actually they're raising the cost of that same water for municipalities. So who's the water for? Well, they'll tell you all the water is for the salmon. The problem is they're releasing all this water out to the ocean. It's not helping the salmon. Because they have all this sewage in these rivers, the salmon can't survive. And so it's a misnomer. It's a way for the government to increase their amount of control. Government overreach is not simply a farming issue, my friend. Government overreach affects everybody. There is not any profession that I know of that's not affected by government overreach. I talk to people in other industries and other professions all the time. And we all have the same problem. Californians voted to spend over $7.5 billion on projects to store water. And this is back in 2014. Yet it seems like almost nothing has been built, or probably nothing. Why is that? Well, we could say that the state hasn't found a project, but that's not true. Hasn't found a project? Yeah. In other words, between the restrictions on building a new dam, the state is doing several things. First of all, it's blowing dams up. There are four dams that they're tearing down on the Klamath River, right? Secondly, the California Aqueduct, which at one time was the world's greatest conveyance system that the world had ever seen, is in disrepair. Number three, there hasn't been a new project built in this state in over 50 years. It's because there's no need. No, the state's population has over doubled. But somehow we can't find new projects. Now, there was one proposed in my neck of the woods. It's called Temperance Flat. It was voted on and approved by the voters. Never been built. Two reasons. One, there are special interests that have thrown up many lawsuits to stop the project for various reasons. The second part is that the state somehow used that money for other things, high-speed rail and other considerations. And so it no longer has the money. Because the state is in debt, right? The state is upside down. So, would you say probably a reason for that is that farmers represent maybe only 2% of the population, and there's not enough lobbying done or not enough voice to make the state follow through with their proposals, even though the voters voted for it? That's a very good point. Yes, farmers, like other groups, there's good and bad. Most farmers, the majority of farmers, simply want to be left alone. They simply want to be left alone to farm, and that's it. They don't want to bother anybody. They don't want to hurt anybody. They just want to be left alone. Unfortunately, in today's world, because today's world is so politicized, that's a bad thing. So, farmers have, in essence, boxed themselves into a corner. And so there's a big disconnect between farmers and the general public. It's like when I go to retail stores and they have these days where you can come meet the farmers and stuff, and I'll go and I'll participate, and it's really interesting to me to talk to the general public. Because the amount of questions they have and their interest in what we're doing is really amazing. It's very humbling, to be honest with you. And I really enjoy participating in those things because it gives me a chance to talk to other folks that are just like me, but they're not farmers. And I'm a farmer, they're not farmers. But they have a million questions, and I'm happy to answer those questions. And really, farmers have to do a better job reaching out. Farmers have to do a better job of telling their story. So I appreciate being here because it gives me a chance to tell our story. So thank you for giving me that opportunity. Despite all the record rainfall we've had, there's additional water restrictions going into next year. So we talk about the problem. Now, tell us in your understanding why this is happening. Why the state of California is so much restricting water for farmers? I think there are a couple of reasons. Part of it is control. The state wants to be able to control farmers. And it's not just farmers. The state wants to be able to control everybody. And so we all face this government overreach. The second part is the powers that be at the state level would much prefer to have houses in the San Joaquin Valley than farms. Now, the interesting thing, though, is that if there are no more farms, then we're going to be dependent on foreign governments for our food. And that's a whole other story. And the public, I don't think, is ready to hear what happens in foreign countries and what those foreign countries do with the food supply. Because if they did, I think most people would be just totally shocked. Now, we talked before about the regulations for food that grows in California or in the U.S. and food that comes in from other countries. And it sounds like they're not the same. Talk to us about that. Yeah, the restrictions on U.S. farmers is much more severe than on foreign farmers. So as an example, in our business. For chemicals, right? Yeah. In our business, the county comes and takes samples of our product monthly. And I have a good relationship with the county inspectors. I tell them, come on in, sample whatever you want. We have, everybody's following the rules, so we have no problem. Just, you know, take whatever sample you want to take. Well, they would take our samples and they would go lab test our samples for all kinds of restricted materials for chemicals and things that are on the ban list, right? However, those same restrictions are not applied to foreign product. So you could have fruit or vegetables come in from foreign countries that are not inspected, that are not tested. As an example, in the off-season when we're not storing our own product, we store product for others. A lot of it's foreign product. And an inspector will come by to test our citrus, and I'll say, well, you want to test a foreign product? Go ahead. You know, you want to test a box of grapes with chili? Go ahead. You know, I'll buy the box. Just test it, right? Well, the United States government does not put those same restrictions on producers who are producing goods in foreign countries that are shipping here to this country. And I don't think most U.S. consumers know that. Talk to us more about the government regulation and why do you think this is happening as far as control of the water and other things. Well, there are a lot of government regulations, some good, some bad. I think, unfortunately, water has become a political issue. Water should not be a political issue. There are many things that are happening, not only to farmers, but to ranchers, to fishermen, to all kinds of producers, that really have nothing to do with the product. It has to do with government control. In other words, there should be protections. I agree with that 100%. But there's a difference between protecting the consumer and using government overreach to change the product or change the producers. As an example, with what's going on in New York currently, I think there's going to be a lot of companies that are going to leave New York because they don't want to be subject to those things that are going on. So that's an example of government overreach that's going to have a chilling effect on the state of New York. As an example, I understand that truckers are refusing to deliver to New York. And if that catches hold, and there are truckers across the country that just refuse to go to New York, the population in New York is going to have a hard time getting food. It's going to be very, very devastating. Because people need food to survive. What's the future for California's farmers? Bleak. In addition to government overreach, there are a lot of economic issues. The economy for most businesses, not just farmers, but for most businesses, has turned very sour. And unfortunately, I'm afraid that there's a lot of businesses that won't survive. And the problem with that isn't just today's producers. The problem is that farming, like every other industry, depends on young people entering the workforce and participating. The problem is that there are many industries now, including farming, where young people don't want to participate in that industry because they don't see a future. In order to attract new blood, in order to attract young people, an industry needs to be vibrant enough to where young people believe that there's a future there for them. And I fear that there are many young people today that feel very bleak about their future. And honestly, that shouldn't be happening. This is a great country. But somehow we've gone away from many things that made us great. I think that in order for us to reestablish ourselves as one nation under God, we need to get back to the things that built this country. Freedom. Equality. The fact that in this country, anybody, irregardless of their background or where they came from, can succeed. That can't just be a passing thought. It has to be real. Young people of this nation need to understand that it's their nation and their future. And they need to participate in it. And I fear that in many ways we are losing our kids. And that really makes me sad because our future is their future. If we have anything to give back, it's our kids' future. It's not about what the country can do for you, it's about what you can do for the country. We all have to believe that. And we all can. But unfortunately, with the leadership today, honestly, we're not seeing it. And that's a big problem for all of us. Based on what you're saying, it seems that the state of California wants to limit or move agriculture out of the state. If that's the case, what are people in California going to do? Are they going to import everything as far as produce? Well, yeah, because California produces a lot of products that you can't produce in other states. In other words, the climate here is such that it affords us the ability to produce a lot of products. There are over 400 products, ag products, that are produced here in California. We produce more of a wider variety and a greater volume of product in this state than any other place in our nation. And you simply can't replace that. And so the supply will become less, the expense of the supply will go up, and the safety of that supply will go down. And that's all by design. It's not an accident. It's by design. And so American farmers and California farmers have spent billions and billions of dollars not only buying that land, but making that land farmable and pouring investment into that land to keep it farmable. And all that is being flushed down the toilet by the state. Because the state, quite frankly, wants it to be such. But they haven't thought about tomorrow. They haven't thought about, well, if you push all the farms out and you build houses, what is everybody going to eat? And where is everybody going to get their water? They haven't thought about that. Now, it seems that some farmers took matters into their own hands. And in some ways, I don't know if it worked out or not, but they took their own water. How do you feel about that? How do you feel people taking the matter into their own hands and making it happen? Farmers are a little bit different breed. Farmers are fiercely independent, and farmers don't wait for the government to tell them to do something. Or what to do. Farmers just do. And so, even with all these restrictions in place, the state threatening to arrest farmers and throw them in jail. Many farmers pumped water, pumped flood water, illegally, according to the state, and put water back in the ground. Spent millions of dollars doing that to help their community. In other words, if you have a community, right? And that community runs out of water. Everybody loses. So, if you're a farmer and you have the ability to take flood water and put it in the ground to help everybody, you do it. And there are thousands of farmers across the state that did exactly that last summer at their own risk. But farmers just have a can-do attitude. They just do. And not that somebody's telling them to do it. They just do it because they know it's the right thing to do. I'm not saying that that's the way it should be. I'm saying that's the way it was. And hopefully, that doesn't continue, because that shouldn't be that way. The state should be working with farmers to put water back in the ground. It's not the farmers that are the problem. It's the state that's the problem. Please tell us more about what's the background, what's the reasoning you think for the state to do this? Because, you know, basically, you have water flowing through and then people are not allowed to use it. And there's little sense that it makes it happen. But is it just control of the population, control of the water? Why is the state doing this? Well, they're wanting to flush sewage. It's a big secret. So, they want to flush sewage. They also want control. It's another way for the state to control the population. It's not by mandate. It's more by fiat. In other words, the state causes the situation to be such that farmers go out of business. The state says, oh, well, we didn't do that. Well, yeah, you did. And so, this is going on across the board. And it isn't just farmers. It's farmers, it's fishermen, it's truckers. It's most independent businesses. And so, most independent businesses find themselves in the same boat with the farmers. And it's by design, I think. That's my own opinion, but I believe it's by design. And what it is, is the state says, well, farmers have money, so we're going to take some of that money. Farmers have water, so we're going to take some of the water. We're going to take, we're going to take, we're going to take. Irrespective of what damage it causes. Irrespective of what the consequences are. The state's very bad at looking at consequences. They're very good at taking. And to be honest with you, Stephen, the answer to it all is for the voters to hold those electeds accountable. You can't just watch a politician and just believe them. Because that's what got us in this mess in the first place. You have to be able to hold your electeds accountable at every level. Don't go based upon what they say. Go based upon what they do. Look at the record. Look at what they vote for and look at what they vote against. And you would be shocked. Because you'll have a politician that says, oh, I'm for the people. Yet when you look at the record, oh, my goodness. They're for themselves and they're for the state. They're not for the people. So we have to stop just electing people. We really have a large part to play in the things that happen to us. We as an electorate really need to hold the electeds much more accountable for what they do, not what they say. I can tell you about politicians that have been in government for 30, 40, 50, 60 years and have completely forgotten where they came from. Some of them never remembered from the beginning where they came from. But there's a lot of them that have gotten off the rails. And I can tell you they're no longer for the people. So we're getting into this campaign season. And you can take 90% of those ads and flush them right down the toilet. Because it's not about what somebody says, it's about what they do. Now, when you get up close and personal and you get to meet the candidates and you get to talk to them, you get to figure out who they really are, that tells you a lot. But there's a lot of people that will literally look you in the face and lie to you. But politicians have a bad habit of doing that. They don't want you to look at what they're doing, but during campaign season they want to put out a nice pretty ad, a nice produced ad, a real glossy ad, and say, yeah, I'm for the people. Now, we talked about solutions. Anything else you'd like to add as far as how farmers can improve their environment and their growing? Well, like you said earlier, farmers are a very small percentage of the public. But farmers are an important part. And what we as farmers need to do is unite with our brothers, the truckers and the dairymen and the ranchers and the fishermen and all of the small business people across this country. We all need to stand together because we're all going to fall together. I want every person to go to the local grocery store. I want them to look down every aisle, and I want them to find the amount of those products that are produced in this country and the amount of products that are produced in other countries. Thinking about, well, what restrictions do we have versus what restrictions do they have? And how safe is my food and how safe is their food? What most consumers will find is that much of the product in the stores is safe because it's produced in this country. However, you take all that product off the shelves and you're going to find that there's not a whole lot of product left on the shelf. And what most people need to understand is the food doesn't come from the grocery store. The food comes from the producer. The grocery store is simply as part of the distribution system by which people can access that product. The grocery store doesn't produce any food. They just distribute the food. They're a very important cog in the wheel, but they're one cog. And there are all kinds of cogs in that wheel. There are producers. There are packers. There are distributors. Transportation. All this product moves by truck. So farmers and truckers and packagers all have to work together so that the consumer gets a good, safe product. And we all do. We all work together. And we're all important cogs in that wheel along with the retailers. So we're all on the same team. And the result of all of that is the abundance that the consumers see in the stores. And oftentimes I think consumers don't really think about that part because it's just so available. But if it was one day not there, then what would we do? Mark, thank you so much for your time. I appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you very much.