Should we mortgage our future for corn?
Dallas Morning News, November 6, 2007

The high plains of the Panhandle form a scenic tableau, one where you can go to confirm the rugged Hollywood image of Texas. But what you see is not the issue. It's what's under the surface that matters.

The farmers and ranchers who live on the vast expanse of our state from Amarillo north through towns like Dalhart have nothing but their future riding on the new farm bill up for debate in the Senate this week.

How that vote turns out, plus the one over the pending energy bill, will determine how much water the Panhandle will have for its people, farms and ranches. There's only so much that the Ogallala Aquifer can produce, and the Panhandle's primary water source could have seen its better days if the Senate continues giving farmers handsome incentives to grow a handful of crops like corn and wheat.

Unfortunately, the Senate probably will head down that road unless enough senators stiffen their spines and quit this nonsense of giving major subsidies to corn, wheat and cotton producers.

The corn subsidy is a particular problem because the country just had its largest corn crop since 1944, thanks largely to a mandate from Congress to produce more ethanol. Basically, Congress and the White House have fallen in love with ethanol as the heir apparent to fossil fuels. You see that in the ethanol incentives in the energy bill working its way through Washington and in parts of this farm bill.

The proposal the Senate Agriculture Committee is bringing to the floor gives incentives to farmers to grow corn, the primary crop used to produce U.S. ethanol. Even with limitless supplies of water, that would not be our long-term answer because of the immense amounts of energy it takes to produce a gallon of ethanol.

Of course, as the droughts in Georgia and wildfires in California remind us, we have no limitless supplies anywhere, including in the Panhandle. The problem will only worsen there – and elsewhere – if we keep growing so much corn, a water-gulping crop.

So much so that people I talked to in the Panhandle last week are nervous. Not about today, but about tomorrow – and several tomorrows down the road. Will there be enough water in the Ogallala for the farmers and ranchers of 2058 or 2078?

That's how state Sen. Kel Seliger, an Amarillo Republican, put it when we talked on the phone. Like others in the Panhandle, he wants to preserve the Ogallala.

He worries about that because of what some think is the rush to grow more corn. Although he didn't say it, others claim corn production prompted troubling changes in the rules of an important Panhandle water district.

The North Plains Groundwater Conservation District governs how much water many Panhandle farmers can draw from the Ogallala. Last month, the district changed several technical rules. The changes will make it easier for farmers to pump more water for their corn, as well as wheat and cotton.

"They cut everyone loose up there," is how C.E. Williams, the manager of a neighboring water district, put it.

When I talked to Steve Walthour, manager of the North Plains district, he went out of his way to emphasize that his district wants to conserve the Ogallala, but there's clearly concern in the Panhandle about his district's changes and the rush to produce corn.

This, folks, is where Washington meets Main Street. If farm subsidies remain lucrative, you can bet there will be pressure to open the pumps.

As you probably guessed, this is more than a Panhandle issue. If there is not enough water in the Ogallala over the next few decades, you will see less water available for the foods Texans in Dallas or Houston want and need.

Nor is this just a Texas story. Ag practices and water resources are in conflict across the country.

Which is why I hope the Senate goes with the competing farm bill that Republican Richard Lugar of Indiana and Democrat Frank Lautenberg of New Jersey are sponsoring. It would do away with subsidies for corn and other crops and put a greater emphasis on conserving natural resources.

We have a choice: More and more corn or preserve our water supplies. I'm not sure I understand how mortgaging our future is ever a good answer.