Water for Life
Welcome to Open Range, I’m Susan Allen. Stay tuned because after the break I’ll check in with our field reporter, Greg Martin for the AgriBeef Minute.
I’m Greg Martin with today’s AgriBeef Minute. Water rights are extremely important to farmers and ranchers and one organization is working hard to preserve them according to Helen Moore, Executive Director of Water for Life.
MOORE: Water for Life is a nonprofit membership organization and our mission is the protection of agricultural water rights in the west. We advocate for farmers and ranchers on protecting their access to adequate water for their crops.
While the Natural Resource Conservation Service has a number of programs Moore says that they are the government side of the issue.
MOORE: We encourage our members to work with NRCS and Soil and Water Conservation Districts on projects to conserve water, to protect water quality.
She says that the biggest problem is over-regulation and a lot of what they do is education on water issues.
MOORE: We’ve done a lot of water meetings in Oregon in the last 4 or 5 years and you’ll hear repeated that agriculture uses 80% of the water in Oregon. Well, that’s not anywhere close to accurate. Agriculture uses about 80% of the water diverted which is less than 10% of the water available.
I’m Greg Martin and that’s today’s AgriBeef Minute.
Thanks Greg. Don’t forget Greg will be back each Wednesday with the AgriBeef Minute. Agri Beef Co - Real Families, Great People, Exceptional Beef. I’m Susan Allen.
