Will farmers have to start paying for their water?

Sunday, December 4, 2011

That's what grape growers like Niagara's David Lambert fear, but experts say that this isn't on the horizon

by SUSAN MANN

Niagara-on-the-Lake grape grower David Lambert has to irrigate his 200-acre crop about once a month if his area hasn't received any rain, pumping water out of a nearby creek to use in both his overhead and trickle irrigation systems.

Lambert, who represents horticultural farmers at a number of water meetings and initiatives, is concerned there's a movement to start charging industry, including farming, for the water it uses. "If, all of a sudden, they're putting a value on water, then if they have to start using less water, farmers will be the first ones out. People that are paying will get the water and everybody else will be put on rations."

Farmers' water use was on the agenda of the Canadian Water Summit meeting held in June in Toronto. Defining how much water the agricultural industry uses can be done two ways. If use is defined by how much water is taken out of rivers and lakes, agriculture is a small user of water, says Steven Renzetti, professor of economics at Brock University. It's smaller than manufacturing, power production and cities.

But, looked at another way, agriculture is the biggest consumer of water, he says. When power plants or cities use water, almost all of it goes back into the rivers or lakes. "But with agriculture, a good deal of it gets captured in plants or gets consumed by livestock, so we say it (the industry) has a high consumptive rate."  That water gets returned somewhere, but not necessarily to the watershed from which it was taken out. There are farmers that are part of big irrigation systems, mainly in the western provinces, that are allocated a certain amount of cubic metres of water in a year and that's what they pay for whether they use it or not.

Renzetti made the comments about agriculture's high consumptive rate at the summit, which was held to exchange ideas between diverse stakeholders working to shape Canada's sustainable water future. It was the second year for the summit, which included a session called "Smart Water Use in Canada's Agricultural Sector."

Lambert, the property section chair for the Ontario Fruit and Vegetable Growers Association, says describing agriculture as the biggest consumer makes it seem like the industry is a water guzzler when it's not. Representing the association at the meeting, Lambert says the day was pretty positive, "but there are always little jabs at agriculture and that was just one of those really obvious ones."

Still, Lambert described the meeting as enlightening, noting that there was information on how much water is used to make certain items. For example, it takes 10,000 litres of water to make one pair of blue jeans, which includes growing the cotton and the manufacturing process. He also found it interesting that the meeting was sponsored by beer-manufacturer Molson Coors Brewing Company, which he described as "one of the biggest water users in Canada."

Associate dean Rob de Loe, professor and research chair in water policy and governance at the University of Waterloo, says that, except for some large industrial users, such as hydro and mining that pay a small royalty for water in some jurisdictions, few people  pay for water in Canada. Industries, urban consumers in municipalities and others don't pay for the actual water, but they do pay for delivery and are charged either a flat rate or a fee per cubic metre of water.

One concern for horticultural farmers is a movement among cash croppers to irrigate if they have water available. "All of a sudden, there's going to be a lot bigger draw on Ontario's water supply if a lot of cash croppers start irrigating," Lambert says, explaining that he has already seen irrigation in soybeans.

The Council of Canadian Academics has been asked by the federal agriculture minister to determine what additional science is needed to better guide sustainable water management to meet agriculture's needs. An expert panel, chaired by Dr. Howard Wheater, an international expert in hydrological science and sustainable water resource management, first met in May and will work for the following 12 to 18 months on its report.

"The belief that Canada possesses an endless supply of fresh water is quickly being replaced by the reality that limits exist and in some regions those limits are already being reached," it says on the council's website. "The agricultural sector in many parts of Canada finds itself under pressure – either in terms of availability of water or in the impacts agriculture is having on hydrological systems."

Knowledge of the underlying hydrological cycles, the potential impacts of climate change and the effects of human activities are all fundamental to developing a policy framework for sustainable water management.

De Loe doesn't think people should pay a royalty for water. "What it comes down to is 'who owns the water'," he says. But he does think people should be charged the full infrastructure cost of having the water provided to them. Those charges should include the cost of ensuring the water flows in the rivers, that it's clean and safe, and that the groundwater is clean and safe as well. Some of those costs are incurred upstream from where the water is actually used.

Currently there isn't a movement to start charging farmers for the water they use, he explains. "Farmers are always afraid of that and they always get up in arms."

The idea likely came from someone hearing the notion that revenue should be collected to manage and protect water resources for the environment and human users. "If we're going to charge for water, who is paying for the environment's share of it then?" de Loe asks.

Farmers are their own suppliers of water, but there are costs with making sure they have access to that supply. "That's sort of where there is a cost involved that farmers and, frankly, everybody isn't really paying," he says. BF