Are Less-thirsty Crops a Solution to Colorado’s Growing Water Problems?

By Michael Booth

The state’s resilient, adaptable farmers can raise just about anything and use less water doing it. But will enough people buy what they produce?

Surveying miles of sprouting Eastern Plains farm fields, the logic around Colorado’s deepening water crisis might sound simple. Colorado each year sinks deeper and deeper into a crisis of water shortages. Up to 90% of the water available in the state each year is used for agriculture.

It takes 44 inches of water a year in Burlington to grow alfalfa. Only about 10 inches of water drops on Burlington in a year. It only takes 15 inches of water to grow a healthy crop of black-eyed peas in Burlington.

So.

The numbers point to seemingly obvious questions: Why couldn’t a lot of eastern Colorado farmers switch crops to black-eyed peas, and sell their saved irrigation water to thirsty Front Range cities, or get paid to leave it in the Colorado and South Platte rivers for others to use?

Could that help calm the intensifying interstate and urban-rural wars over shrinking water supplies?

Expand the questions across Colorado: Could Mesa County farmers leave more water in the Gunnison River by growing obscure but nutritious sainfoin as cattle forage? Would San Luis Valley farmers try easily quenched rye grass to help the dwindling Rio Grande and hold the soil against unhealthy winter dust storms? Can they grow camelina for bio jet fuel in Fruita? Take advantage of oil-producing sunflower varieties that thrive like weeds in Lincoln County?