Here we are! We made it! With great pride and excitement, we present to you the 150th episode of the Millennial Ag Podcast. We’ve been considering very carefully what we wanted this episode to be, and we thank you for your patience while we’ve been developing it. Over the last couple months, we’ve been talking to our friends, neighbors, acquaintances, policy makers, industry professionals and whoever else we could think of to bring us their own “Top 5 Biggest Issues in Ag”. Many of them are as you would suspect – farmgate prices, mental health, barriers to entry, adoption of technology, government interference and/or support, climate change….we know the list. However, we came up against a few that we hadn’t considered before, and they intrigued us so much that we decided to dedicate this milestone episode to the first one. We will be bringing you much more content surrounding these topics, and today we’re kicking it off with the subject of agriculture water use.
We’re joined this week by Warren Peterson, a close family friend of Katharine’s, a career-long water lawyer, and most importantly, a deep thinking and very considered individual. In this episode, we go beyond just water rights and bemoaning the lack of it. We talk about the mismanagement of agricultural water, its usage in agriculture production compared to municipal use (consider this: agriculture uses around 80% of water and bounces around 8-15% of economic activity. Non-industry groups are questioning this balance, and it’s leading to difficulties to people understanding where their food….and water…comes from, and why it’s so important that agriculture has access to water) and even more interestingly, about how foreign entities (foreign states and actors, investors) may be gaining more control over US agricultural land, and therefore water, than would make us comfortable. Are we exporting water to these countries? Do we need systems in place to protect US land ownership? Does this pose a security risk? Warren discusses all this and more, and has some pretty fascinating answers and viewpoints to address it. Tune in, turn up, and enjoy this episode that kicks off more relevant and exciting content than ever on the podcast where ag is always on tap, and no topic is off limits.
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Love, Katharine and Val