Weak Snowpack Signals Tight Water Supplies for Western Agriculture

By Daniel Munch and Shelby Hagenauer

Key Takeaways

• Snowpack across much of the Western U.S. is well below historical averages, limiting runoff and tightening irrigation supplies heading into the growing season.
• Western agriculture plays an outsized role in the production of fruits, vegetables and tree nuts while maintaining a substantial share of dairy, cattle and wheat output.
• Farmers and ranchers face difficult decisions this year amid ongoing uncertainty around water availability across the West.

With snowpack running well below normal in many basins in the Western U.S., expected and much-needed runoff is limited, reducing the water available for irrigation and rangeland. Reduced water allocations for irrigated farmland, tighter forage supplies and elevated drought risk all increase the likelihood of difficult production decisions in the months ahead.

Western Agriculture’s Role in the U.S. Food System

Western agriculture plays a central role in U.S. food production, spanning both high-value specialty crops and key livestock and field crop systems. Across 12 Western states, the region accounts for the majority of U.S. fruit, vegetable and tree nut production by value — typically over 70% overall and more than 90% for many individual commodities. At the same time, the region supports a significant share of U.S. cattle and calf inventories, dairy production, wheat and hay output — all of which are closely tied to forage conditions and irrigation reliability. Production is distributed across diverse systems, from irrigated specialty crops in the Southwest and Pacific states to rangeland-based livestock and dryland wheat across the Mountain West and Northern Plains.

The major similarity across these disparate landscapes is their dependence on snowmelt-fed surface water. In many Western states, snowmelt supplies as much as 75% of total water availability, making winter snow accumulation a critical determinant of how much water is available later in the year. Much of the region does not receive enough in-season rainfall to support consistent production on its own, so irrigation supplied by river systems like the Colorado, Columbia, Sacramento and San Joaquin is what stabilizes output year to year.