Irrigated Lands Regulatory Program … even the acronym is cumbersome, ILRP.
Ag and food tech entrepreneurs need to know about ILRP — about the bureaucratic infighting, the growers’ fears and the implications for on-farm technology businesses. About how it illustrates your business sector and the useful lessons to be learned.
This is the second part of my two-part blog on dynamic ag tech disruption as manifesting at the State Water Resources Control Board (SWRCB).
And, as with all dynamics, there are opportunities and pitfalls.
Water is essential to all things agriculture and food, so you should immediately have a clue as to how important the ILRP battle is to your aspirations and products.
I didn’t want to scare you, so I waited until now to share the formal title of this imbroglio: “In the Matter of Review of Waste Discharge Requirements General Order No. R5-2012-0116 for Growers Within the Eastern San Joaquin River Watershed that are Members of the Third-Party Group.”
No, really. OK then, would you believe the May 17 hearing in Fresno drew a couple hundred interested farmers and lasted all day? No, really.
In an almond nutshell, the issue is this: Should the SWRCB enact stringent statewide controls requiring each and every farmer to monitor and report what happens to applied irrigation water? How much, at what time and where it goes? Remember, irrigation water also can transport fertilizer to plants or fertilizer and pesticides away from plants.
There’s a significant impact on groundwater quality, and thus the ILRP was born a decade ago. On the farmers’ side, they formed a coalition, aka a “third-party group.” The coalition in this case is formally incorporated and provides advice and compliance to members at a discounted cost, and shields their proprietary information (like water use) through aggregate data.
In removing jurisdiction of this matter from the regional Central Valley Water Board (CVWB), the SWRCB proposes to require each farmer to report data individually, thereby making coalitions pointless.
That is the contention of California Department of Food and Agriculture Secretary Karen Ross, CVWB Executive Officer Pamela Creedon and SWRCB Member DeeDee D’Adamo. It’s an unusual standoff among leaders of the same administration.
And our friend Darrin Polhemus (see my prior blog post), the SWRCB deputy director who wrote the draft general order, is now responding to their concerns by rewriting the draft. Details unfold here:
http://www.waterboards.ca.gov/public_notices/petitions/water_quality/a2239_sanjoaquin_ag.shtml
Your opportunity, however this plays out, is here: Inputs (water, nutrients, pesticides) will have to be measured more accurately in more places and reported in near-real time. Applications of inputs will have to be more precise in time and space.
Just one example — fertigation. Before you apply fertilizer via water in a micro-irrigation system, you must first understand the chemical, the evapotranspiration rate, the soil type and condition, the plant, the time of year (i.e., plant need), the flow rate, the plant’s uptake, the amount remaining in the vadose zone, the legacy amount in the soil and groundwater, the runoff and where it goes, the complications caused by storm water and the numeric goal of the new SWRCB general order for the ILRP.
You didn’t think this was easy, did you? But, hey, this is why the farmers and consumers need ag and food technology. Get busy!
