IID approves potential hefty payments for farmers to not grow hay
Farmers could be paid not to make hay while the sun shines, per a new Imperial Irrigation District payment schedule and other actions authorized Tuesday aimed at shoring up the Colorado River’s dwindling reservoirs and coping with low forage prices. If all goes as planned, growers and owners of farm fields could be paid $300 per acre-foot for not irrigating alfalfa and other perennial feed crops for between 45 and 60 days. The plants would be stressed but would survive, and substantial water supply would instead be left in drought-depleted Lake Mead, which provides water for millions of people and millions of acres of farmland in California, Arizona and Nevada.
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