At a fresh fruit stand across the road from a Riverside citrus grove, the topic of the drought inevitably came up.
A hot topic was Governor Brown asking for a 25 percent cutback in water use by almost all Californians, businesses, and industries - except one.
Not coincidentally, it is the state's largest consumer of water- agriculture.
"Everyone should take their part." said Diana Hermano, a pharmacist with a passion for blood oranges.
Four hundred miles to the north in the state capital, a former state water official was more blunt.
"The public is willing to do its part if it feels the burden is is being shared equally," said Jonas Minton, former deputy director of the California Dept. of Water Resources, now water policy advisor for the Planning and Conservation League.
Minton has become a leading voice in calling on California policy makers to re-examine water policies that favor agriculture over competing interests in some ways, though not all--agriculture argues it has suffered unnecessarily from decisions committing surface water to environmental and wildlife protection.
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"Agriculture in California is a $45 billion operation--business," observed Steve Pastor, executive director of the Riverside County Farm Bureau. "And I think people understand one in ten California jobs depends on agriculture to survive."
Even before this drought, agriculture has done its share of conservation by switching to more efficient irrigation systems, Pastor said, adding that in some farming areas near population centers, agriculture uses recycled water that could not be go into the drinking water supply.
For the most part, the steps have been voluntary and motivated by business decisions, rather than government edict.
For more than half a century, California agriculture has benefitted from water imported hundreds of miles via aqueduct systems built under government direction to reduce dependence on groundwater.
During the drought, the availability of imported water has dwindled. Allocations from the state water project, which draws its resources from Sierra Nevada snowmelt, stand at 20 percent.
But the state's growers have been able to keep crop production within five percent of pre-drought levels, in part due to efficiency measures, and to a greater extent from increased pumping of groundwater from wells.
In some area of the state, such as the San Jacinto Valley, agreements limit now muc well water may be drawn. But other areas have no limits whatsoever, and growers have been able to maintain their fields, though the cost of the power to pump water increases expenses.
The Governor's executive order does refer to groundwater, requiring certain reports to be expedited.
Minton dismissed that as "paper exercises rather than real reductions."
Last year, the state legislature adopted new requirements for groundwater monitoring and planning for sustainability to be phased in over the next two decades.
Minton is among those who argue the state needs to shorten those deadlines, and discourage growers from expanding permanent tree crops, and digging new and deeper wells.
"My mother taught me the first rule of holes: stop digging," Minton said, expressing concern that before the groundwater protections are fully in place, underground aquifers
may be depleted beyond saving.
Minton echoes the plea last month from Jay Famiglietti, senior water scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. In an op-ed article, Famiglietti cited evidence gathered via satellite of a massive loss of groundwater in America's southwest since the beginning of the millennium, and called on the state to take urgent action.
Minton chides Gov. Brown for being "slow in his response." Brown has spoken of his commitment to escalate steps as the situation warrants and when--politcal analysts note--public sentiment is ready.
It has long been de facto policy in California that surface water for agriculture is deserving of cost subsidies, because of agriculture's role in providing essential foodstuffs.
Minton contends that is undercut by the shift toward high value specialty crops, particularly almonds and pistachios.
"Almonds are tasty, I'll grant you that," Minton said. "But they're not essential in the food web." What's more, much of the nut crop is exported overseas.
Growers respond that producing any product, be it food or industrial, requires water, and exports help reduce America's trade imbalance.
One other consequence of the switch from so-called row crops--such as grains and tomatoes
that must be replanted each season--is less flexibility in responding to drought, because unlike a wheat field, nut trees cannot simply be "fallowed" in dry years to save water, but must be irrigated or be lost.
In recent decades, some half a million acres of farmland have been idled, some due to lack of available water, but much also due to drainage problems and soil contaminated by salts and other residues from irrigation water.
The possibility this drought is more than a periodic cycle swing, but a longer term result of climate change, is also addressed by Minton. Some foresee the potential loss of vast swaths of California farmland, particularly in the San Joaquin Valley. Minton envisions jobs and economic growth from a new crop: electrons, generated in fields of solar power plants to designed to exploit the relentless growing season sun that requires so much water to sustain agriculture.
It is a future that many growers hope to avoid so long as water is still available.
