Brown Bag Session: Don’t Fence Me In – Legal Barriers to Agricultural Water Transactions

FlorenceLow_DWR_FolsomLake_5.27.15.jpg

Photo Credit: 
Florence Low, DWR

Speaker: Anne Castle, Visiting Landreth Scholar, Water in the West

Abstract: Water scarcity and escalating pressures on agricultural water supplies increase the need for flexibility in our historically rigid water law framework.  Agricultural producers need to be incentivized to incorporate efficiency improvements into their operations – the converse of the traditional “use it or lose it” legal regime.  While preservation of the agricultural economy of the western states is a universal goal, farmers should have access to market mechanisms that allow them to realize the value of their water right assets if they so choose, and to use those assets in financially advantageous ways, e.g., as a supplemental income stream, as a hedge against crop losses, or to support capital investment.  This research will review some of the legal barriers to market-based agricultural water transactions, some of the mechanisms currently in use to overcome those barriers, and provide additional recommendations.

RSVP Here

Connect