Left out to dry: How the Texas rice belt could vanish
… For nine decades, rice farmers who bought water from the [Lower Colorado River Authority] could open valves and flood their rice fields when needed. Even during the historic drought of the 1950s, farmers irrigated their fields from the Highland Lakes, the chain of dammed freshwater bodies spanning Central Texas from Lake Buchanan to Lake Austin. Today, 280 Texas farmers raise rice on about 149,000 acres, down from 1,400 who cultivated about 650,000 acres from the 1950s through the 1970s. … [In] March 2024, the LCRA notified farmers that they would be cut off again. The soonest they might be permitted to buy stored water is March 2025, depending on the reservoirs’ water levels. The situation has gotten so grave that the entire rice farming industry in Texas is at risk. Water—its high cost and low availability—is one of a host of challenges facing Texas rice farmers including escalating costs, urbanization, encroaching solar and wind farms, and erratic weather conditions.