California Gov. Jerry Brown defends agriculture's water use during drought

Sprinklers at a golf course in California

(Image credit: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

published 6 April 2015

California Gov. Jerry Brown (D) is standing behind his plan to reduce water use primarily in urban spots as opposed to agricultural areas.

Brown announced mandatory drought restrictions last week, and wants towns and cities to cut their water use by at least 25 percent. Although the biggest water user in the state is agriculture, Brown is targeting parks, lawns, and golf courses. "Farmworkers who are at [the] very low end of the economic scale here are out of work," he said on Sunday's This Week. "There are people in agriculture areas that are really suffering."

Brown argues that restricting water use on farms would negatively impact the state, saying, "If you don't want to produce any food and import it from some other place, of course you could do that." He does plan to look at water rights that permit some farms to purchase water at a lower cost than others. "Some people have a right to more water than others," he said. "That's historic. That's built into the legal framework of California. If things continue at this level, that's probably going to be examined, but as it is, we do live with a somewhat archaic water law situation."

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Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.

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