Groundwater regulation and its impacts on farming dominated panel discussions at Thursday’s Water Association of Kern County’s annual Water Summit. While the picture of how SGMA will likely impact agriculture has become more clear, it hasn’t gotten any prettier over the past 10 years since the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act became law. The first panel of the day set the tone as farmland appraisers Mike Ming and Allan Barros flipped through slide after slide showing how values have dropped, especially in regions where growers are totally groundwater dependent or even if they have contracts for state water.

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