California governor: Restricting farms’ water ‘not needed’ yet

California Gov. Jerry Brown (D) on Sunday defended the state’s new mandatory water limits, which have drawn criticism for largely leaving out agriculture, the state’s biggest water consumer.

Brown said he would re-examine water limits for farms “if things continue at this level” but said he doesn’t believe that step is necessary yet.

“Of course we can shut it off, if you don’t want to produce any food, and you want to import it from some other place, theoretically you can do that,” Brown said on ABC’s “This Week.”

“But that would displace hundreds of thousands of people. I don’t think it’s needed,” he said.

The governor’s water plan, which he announced last week, imposes a mandatory 25 percent cut on household and business water usage. It has drawn criticism from business and economic leaders who criticize the lack of restrictions on farmers.

Agriculture makes up about 80 percent of the state’s water consumption, though it generates about 2 percent of the state’s economic output.

Brown defended the economics of his current plan, stressing that farm workers are already “at the very low end of the economic scale.”

“People in the agriculture industry are really suffering,” he said. “They’re not watering their lawn or taking long showers.”

Brown’s executive order, which he described as a wake up call for California, is the state’s first mandatory limits on water since the record-breaking drought began four years ago.