The rice irrigation water released from storage in Lakes Buchanan and Travis during the months of March through October each year is the largest single use of water in the Colorado River basin. How much is released depends primarily upon the weather and the number of acres of rice planted.
Those of you who pay attention to such things may be curious about why the reservoir lakes are nearly at pool stage at the beginning of April, although the rice irrigation season has been underway for more than a month. Weather is having the most influence in the short term, but a recent dramatic change in the economics of rice farming may be the more important influence in the longer term.
In answer to the question, "Why is Lake Travis near pool stage when we are a month into the rice season?," Bob Rose, LCRA Meteorologist, says that although neither end of the river has had much rain during the first quarter of 2007, the lower (rice) counties had a lot of rain around the end of 2007 and the beginning of 2008. That earlier rain has made it difficult to get equipment into the rice fields, so rice planting has been delayed.
The LCRA Report newsletter reported in March that a jump in market prices had driven up rice acreage in our basin from 50,000 acres last season to 57,000 acres this year. More rice acres means more irrigation water releases, of course.
An article about rice economics in Water Matters newsletter in October, 2006, included a prediction by Bloomberg Economics that the "price of rice could double in the next two years." Well, that is exactly what has happened. A bonanza for the rice farmers? A conversation with Haskell Simon, rice farmer from Matagorda County, puts the situation in perspective. Simon reports that while the price of rice has doubled, so has the price of diesel fuel and seed, while fertilizer prices have tripled.
Rice acreage in the Colorado River basin has been declining for a decade. Rice farmers have switched to lawn grass, cattle, or row crops which do not require irrigation. Many rice farmers have left the business altogether, during a long period when it was very difficult to break even raising rice (see "Rice Business," below).
Simon points out that such an increase in crop prices would normally be expected to bring a much larger increment of acreage back into production, but now there is a shortage of farmers. He says that rice farmers used to consider their dwindling supply of water to be the limiting factor for rice production in this basin. However, the limiting factor now seems to be the number of rice farmers. In our basin, he says, younger farmers are leaving the rice business, and, "The average age of rice farmers in this basin is well into the 50's."
