Three Generations of Irrigators

Interviewee

Darryll Olson

Columbia-Snake Rivers Irrigators Association

Rella Reimann

T and R Farms co- owner, with her husband

Reid Reimann

Son of Rella Reimann, also with T and R Farms

Interviewers

Alison M Jones

NWNL Director and Photographer

Barbara Folger

NWNL Snake Basin Expedition Member

On May 12, 2014 in Pasco WA

Introductory Note

This was our first day of interviews on our NWNL Snake River Expedition. While standing by this farming family’s pumps on the banks of the Snake River, we instantly understood the importance of water availability to eastern Washington’s farming families. Their pumping water from the river may be criticized by those who worry about declining salmon populations; but this farming family’s withdrawals are carefully monitored by their team, computer technology and local government.

This interview begins with the story of pioneering farm families depending on government infrastructure for water, and then widens to the global issue of food scarcity. While the Reimann’s farm is relatively small – albeit it being 5 farms combined – when compared to industrial farming, their efforts to produce food sustainably face legal obstacles preventing greater productivity, thus limiting its ability contribute to the task of feeding the world.

Outline

A FAMILY LEGACY of FARMING
POST- DUSTBOWL: The COLUMBIA BASIN PROJECT
IRRIGATED FARMING on the SNAKE RIVER
GENERATIONAL CHANGES
“RIVER FARMS’ PUMPED IRRIGATION
A 3rd GENERATION LOW-WASTE APPROACH
HURDLES for YOUTH WANTING TO FARM
GOVERNMENT REGS v FARM ECONOMIES
NO SEWAGE SLUDGE & OTHER REG’S
GLOBAL FOOD SUPPLY ISSUES
THE LESSON OF SNAKE RIVER’S IRRIGATED FOODS
WHERE ARE THE FUTURE FARMERS?

Key Quotes Land and water become very important as you gain a feeling of ownership. –Rella Reimann, T& R Farms co-owner

A new environmental issue will emerge and be even more sexy than climate change and CO2. The world will focus on availability of irrigation water for producing needed food. That’s the new environmental issue, and that’s what it will take to change the perspective. – Darryll Olson, CSRIA

NWNL/ALISON JONES Thank you both for inviting us to your farm to discuss the importance of clean water availability to your home. Let’s start with the history and management of this lovely farm.

REID REIMANN As owner of T&R farms, I do a little of everything: from picking up rocks in the fields to paperwork, unfortunately.

RELLA REIMANN We have lived here at T&R Farms with my father and brother. We have sold our shares to my son, so now he’s our boss. My job is to take care of the money. My husband does the farming and enjoys working with Darryll Olson and the Columbia-Snake Rivers Irrigators Association. My brother is also on that board.

A FAMILY LEGACY of FARMING

NWNL/ALISON JONES Let’s start with importance of this Snake River Basin – a large part of the Columbia River Basin – and its relevance to your farm’s production. You’ve said you grew up in eastern Washington, standing in the ditches of Moses Lake….

RELLA REIMANN In 1955 my family moved from southern Idaho to the Upper Snake River Basin, near Moses Lake. My twin brother and I were in 6th grade and our older sister in 10th grade. We moved because there was no land to buy in southern Idaho. Basically, you had to marry a landowner. My dad had farmed, raising onions and potatoes for JR Simlock for C-rations. Prior to that, he broke green horses that were then railed to the Midwest to sell for working on the farms. My dad really wanted land of his own.

My mother was born and raised in Chicago. Her parents had a resort place in Minnesota where she met my dad. They moved up to the Upper Snake River Basin in eastern Washington to buy their own land, and built a tent house, which was kind of fun for us kids, but had to have been tough on my mother. The first year we were here, the roads blew shut with windstorms and so school ran until the 28th of July; and restarted in August. It was just hard work, and nobody had any money. One day we traded a sack of potatoes with a neighbor for a sack of beans so we could have bean soup instead of potato soup. So, you learn from it all. Land and water become very important as you gain a feeling of ownership.

We came down here; bought five dryland farms; and then developed the irrigation system here. I’m proud we are a family-owned farm. We all love what we do. Our success comes from hard work and constant learning. In my day, girls either were nurses or teachers when I was in college. Two girls went for business degrees. I would have been the farmer. I would have loved it. But it just wasn’t an option at the time. So, I married Ron, having met him in college. He was from a dryland farm around the Ritzville/Odessa area. He loves irrigation farming and so here we are.

POST- DUSTBOWL: The COLUMBIA BASIN PROJECT

NWNL/ALISON JONES How have you seen farming and irrigation change?

RELLA REIMANN Growing up, my brother and I stood in the ditch when the water first came through the canals from the basin. It was an exciting time for people, not just us, but for many people in the irrigation district. Up until then, there was no irrigation in eastern Washington, where it’s very dry. We had cleared our land from all the sage brush and stuff, but we had to have water to make anything grow. The expectation for eastern Washington was, “With water, we can grow anything in this area.” We’ve proved that we can.

It was exciting as my brother and I stood in that canal waiting for the first water to come through. When it did, my mother knew that we could drill a well and live in a house. That water was the very reason we came here. Now eastern Washington was a place to develop and go – thanks to the government bureau’s Moses Lake project.

NWNL/ALISON JONES So and that timing was when? And what project was instrumental in building those canals?

DARRYLL OLSEN It was the Columbia Basin Project Irrigation Project set up by the US Bureau of Reclamation in 1943 after the Dust Bowl. It began delivering irrigation water in 1952.

RELLA REIMANN I must admit, when my dad drove us into Warden, Washington, [east of Moses Lake] we thought he had taken us to hell. This was an old German-Russian dryland agricultural town. There were huge rocks in the streets. There was no place to live. And kind of overnight because of the Columbia Basin Project [hereafter, CBP] irrigation system, whole towns popped up.

Water came into the canals from the Columbia Basin Irrigation Project and from Grand Coulee Dam. Every day you could see what the water was doing for agriculture in eastern Washington. We have a wonderful climate to grow anything. It was so exciting to have the water start coming. My brother and I stood waiting for the water to come and watching it rise a little bit past our knees. Then my mother made us get out of the canal. That was really a big deal. A big deal. Many people who got land at that time were veterans. They farmed in units, especially in an area called Block One. They were further up the pipe and got water before we did.

It was a tough time, and people worked hard. Being in Warden felt like being the last pioneer in agriculture – until my dad had a vision to buy these 5 dryland farms down here on the river and put in irrigation. We’d always farmed about the same amount of acreage, but it was scattered all over to the Washington towns of Quincy, Moses Lake, Odessa and Warden and any town nearby.

IRRIGATED FARMING on the SNAKE RIVER

RELLA REIMANN So my family bought these farms and then started to irrigate this farm with water from the Snake River. We were among the first farms on the Snake River. If we’d known what it entailed, we probably wouldn’t have done it. But it was amazing. It took a year to get all the proper permits, and another year for the development of it. So, we farmed it as dryland until permits were done.

The irrigation system was designed 45 years ago and is basically the same system first designed out of the river. Two things have changed: the irrigation and a sod set pipe which is technically unbelievable. It saves water; it saves our ground; it keeps our ground in good condition; and we can change anything anytime to save our environment and our ground.

These technical aspects are important since our food all goes to the public. Thus, they need to know that our supply is safe and abundant. Most of our sweet corn goes to Japan. We used to raise fresh peas and much of that crop went to Japan. Our potatoes go all over the world. Our wheat goes all over the world. We load our produce directly onto barges during wheat harvest. Our field corn is sold mostly for dairies.

And our orchard apples go all over the world.

NWNL/ALISON JONES So unlike when you lived near Moses Lake, where your land was spotted around, these 5 farms you own are contiguous?

RELLA REIMANN Yes, now everything’s here. We had to pay for developing our irrigation system. It wasn’t done by the government. It was very expensive. We had to irrigate out of just one initial pumping plant for all our acreage.

NWNL/ALISON JONES Do you grow veggies for your own self?

RELLA REIMANN I used to have a huge garden but not now – but now I just go out to the field for corn and potatoes.

GENERATIONAL CHANGES

NWNL/ALISON JONES How is your family’s life different from when you moved here in 1955?

RELLA REIMANN Our life is vastly different. All of us kids wanted to get off the farm because it was so hard. Education was a big deal in my house, so we all went to college. My sister is now a very successful physician. My brother wanted to go into acting. I was a vocal music major, piano minor. Yet, we all ended up farming, except my sister. My husband graduated from college and was in the military in the Vietnam war. We had no money and so we worked for my dad. He loved it and so we stayed. My brother came back from Israel with a broken engagement; and since my dad wanted to expand and my brother also ended up farming.

NWNL/ALISON JONES What crops were you farming back in 1955?

RELLA REIMANN Then we primarily raised potatoes and wheat. We also raised celery for Safeway Corporation which I planted by hand myself. It was a wonderful crop and very lucrative. However, it grew so well in the basin that there was a lot of waste because since there was a glut. There is a wide array of vegetables and crops that can be raised here. We raised all kinds of berry plants. Our orchards are very productive.

There isn’t a vegetable in the world that doesn’t grow here. As you drove out, maybe you saw them hand-planting peppers along the air strip on the highway. In this Lower Snake Basin, compared to Moses Lake/Warden area, we have 32 more growing days – yet there is only about a 60- mile distance. The weather change is amazingly different. That’s another advantage of being down here. But there was no more land altogether to farm in the upper basin to buy.

My parents really forged the way for us and did the ugly hard work due to a lack of money. I’m so glad Dad saw this development because their hard work and dedication laid the ground for us, allowing us to do technical things better. In turn, we’re making it better for the next generation.

We worry about money all the time because growing produce costs a lot of money. When someone grabs a potato, they should know it costs $3800 an acre to raise them. People understand the cost of producing vegetables. Our “production year” costs to raise these crops is well over $5 million – and that must be paid back every year. So there are financial concerns and I still “rob Peter to pay Paul” to get through the next day. I worry about money all the time.

The financial investment for all the irrigation needed to raise a crop costs a lot of money. As I said, our water and our irrigation systems weren’t built by the government. We did it ourselves. We are very proud of that; but it’s aggravating that many people don’t realize that investment needed to run our river farms.

“RIVER FARMS’ PUMPED IRRIGATION

NWNL/ALISON JONES Do you and your neighboring “river farms” use the government to pay costs pumping water from the river for your irrigation needs?

RELLA REIMANN No, all of that is private money. All costs for the development, water permits, and pumping stations have been paid for by private farm owners like us. Those in the Columbia Basin, under the CBP project run by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation do not pay for that water delivery. Thus, we feel a closeness and commitment to our business because we’ve taken tremendous risks and have made a tremendous investment.

NWNL/ALISON JONES Do you get tax breaks or benefits for your investments?

RELLA REIMANN We get no tax benefit for anything. Everybody talks about agriculture getting so many subsidies. As a matter of record, I want you to understand this! We are incorporated as a family corporation with our businesses owned and operated by the family. That protects our land and property ownership in various situations like divorce and such. But just because we are incorporated, if we earn over a certain amount of money – which is miniscule – we can’t get any subsidies.

So, we don’t get subsidies, and I don’t know any irrigated farmers that do get subsidies. When people talk about farmers getting subsidies, some farmers that do – but we are unable to.

A 3rd GENERATION LOW-WASTE APPROACH

NWNL/ALISON JONES Your mother has explained past irrigation challenges. How do you assess you’re the water related challenges of today and tomorrow? And what you think future agricultural threats and needed solutions will be?

REID REIMANN Yes. Mother talked about the technology. All our water systems are run by GPS or our computers. They control our pumps for the flow and our booster stations. Another water factor we have with all this new technology is keeping people on the farm to do that. As years have gone by, everyone has become so far removed from farming, the concept of what a farmer is and what we do. Nobody realizes there more than just putting water onto crops. Nobody realizes what we do to conserve water for low pressure systems. We put in our first low-pressure water system in the early 1980’s.

With these new technologies, we’ve been able to expand our system; and we use lots of water doing it since we now own and manage more acres than we began with. We’re still very involved in being water efficient. We use a lot of GPS systems on our circle of crops now and program our panels to smartly water different sections of the field. That drops our water usage.

There’s another new technology that hasn’t quite been fixed but will program site-specific use of sprinklers by opening and closing them. and things like that. It’s new and we haven’t yet completely worked it out yet. Meanwhile, we’re always fighting for reduced use of water.

Everybody is very concerned there’s not enough water, since so much is allocated to farming. I don’t think farmers get any credit for what we have done. Everybody thinks we just pump all the water we want. Very few people outside the agricultural community realize the savings we’ve created here over the years. I keep seeing farmers who just want to get more ground and more water. They don’t realize that extra ground we’re farming is irrigated with water we’ve conserved. So much of our water gets moved from one set of acres onto more acres – meaning we’re now using less water – i.e., doing more with less.

NWNL/ALISON JONES Can you quantify the amount of water you have saved? As you say, your innovative approaches are well understood or appreciated, especially in far flung spaces.

REID REIMANN When we first came down to this Snake River farm, everything was enclosed. But our farming approach doesn’t run any water in ditches. All the water we pump out goes into the ground. We pump the water up and put it out on the field. Where we used to use 240 lbs. down at the river to pump our water (i.e., pressure to shove the water up). now we’re down to about 160 lbs. And where we used 7.5 to 7.8 gallons, we’re down to 6, to 6.2 gallons. That’s where our savings come.

NWNL/ALISON JONES That’s impressive.

HURDLES for YOUTH WANTING TO FARM

DARRYLL OLSEN I do want to discuss buying water, understanding water marketing, and how difficult it is to get access to water.

REID REIMANN When we buy our water permit, it is for so many acres. We have instantaneous flow (regarding how many gallons we can pull at any time) and a certain amount of acre feet. We now have a very large amount of water we can use; but state law says that if we conserve or don’t quite develop in a timely enough manner, they’ll take it away from us – and we cannot get it back. They just say, “You didn’t use that, so you no longer have it.”

NWNL/ALISON JONES Basically, the old “Use it or lose it” adage.

REID REIMANN Yes. So, if a farm wants to grow, or finds some ground that needs water, it must go back into the system and hire people who deal with water and find farms that are changing over to say a venue that has access to water, knowing they will use it. Then you can buy that and move it around.

That all sounds as if it should work fine. But the government agencies tend to be against any water being moved. They’d rather have water taken away back into their black hole and not be used anymore. That means they’re addressing a resource that is abundant in Oregon – a very water-rich state – and making water scarce. They make land you can buy for $1500 for an acre cost $2500 an acre. It’s just “snowballing” – making irrigation ungodly expensive.

It shouldn’t be that way, and it will just get worse. On the upside, for farms with their own water certificates and stuff, it’s worthwhile. But it makes it very hard for younger farmers to get into the business and succeed. I came back to our farm. But when I graduated high school, I was gone and not coming back. Yet, I ended up coming back. I’m still a young farmer – I’m only 45. But in talking to guys in their 20’s that want to come back, getting into agriculture is very hard if you don’t marry into it or are related to a farming family. Friends of mine with a younger brother got his grant and badly wants to farm. But his family farm is owned by 4 brothers, and thus is not big enough to support them all. It’s too hard and expensive to get into farming unless you have somebody who can back you.

NWNL/ALISON JONES Is that because of equipment?

REID REIMANN It’s everything. Part of it is equipment. Much has to do with river farms being dependent on the water. These farms are unique since we have the water in the Snake River and the correct climate, so we can grow anything in this area. And so our Columbia Basin river farms have a better opportunity to grow in the future. At first, we had potatoes and wheat. Now we have potatoes, wheat, green peas, apples, corn, garlic, peppers, tomatoes. Vineyards here have exploded. All these are available because of our irrigation from the river.

GOVERNMENT REGS v FARM ECONOMIES

NWNL/BARBARA FOLGER I feel a sense of frustration.

REID REIMANN Our frustration comes from regulations and rules they impose on how water is used. The government has different philosophies. One faction doesn’t want any more water at all pulled out of the river, as it is detrimental to the fish. They don’t see agricultural community improvements as improving things. We pull water out of the Snake, but that feeds communities all over the world. When I came down here before we built our farm, there were coyotes and many of rattlesnakes.

Now we have deer populations, elk, geese, ducks, and wildlife ponds we’ve put in over the years. The geese became so numerous that they packed the ground enough to take out the wheat. And these species benefit from how we’ve used the river system. We’re not just growing food. So much has grown and benefited from species and jobs to boating and fishing. These are spinoffs from water projects for the farmers.

RELLA REIMANN The processing plant provides tremendous employment in this area, and they’re good jobs. Agriculture itself doesn’t hire people anymore at the minimum per-hour wage because we need people with the background to read an equipment manual and set a computer panel. We hire intelligent employees, and we pay accordingly. They are very good jobs. And we’re not the only ones. Anyone running a successful farm realizes the value of their employees, but it’s hard to find them, because they don’t want to work past 5 p.m. or on Saturdays — it isn’t about wages.

REID REIMANN Plus, there’s a stigma with farming too. Everyone has a different view on what a farmer does. But people don’t see a farmer as someone working computer panels that pump water, running neutron probes, driving GPS tractors, involved like my father with the water legislation issues in this state and all states within the Columbia River Basin. He studies the laws for farmers – also for municipalities, tribes, fishermen, recreation businesses and other diverse fields.

As mother says, we have difficulties hiring people who do programming and are intelligent; but when people ask, “What do you do?,” saying “I work on a farm” doesn’t suggest to folks that he’s our electrician or very good on the computers. To most people, it’s still just farming. Many people don’t respect or want to be working on a farm. So, what’s the solution? Is it a new vocabulary? Is it a messaging branding issue?

RELLA REIMANN The issue is we have more rules and regulations than federal prisons do. We must report water usage and chemical usage daily. We must prove our produce is safe for the public. And the public – not educated on how safe US agriculture – worries about chemical issues and other concerns. They have no clue about the efforts made so our food is safe. They buy fruit from South America or Mexico that probably has DDT or human waste on it that we can’t or don’t ever use.

The rules and regulations are frustrating. Last week I told my husband, “Oh my God, let’s go dig a hole and climb into it. It is never-ending.” Our problem is the frustration, not the hard work.

NO SEWAGE SLUDGE & OTHER REG’S

NWNL/ALISON JONES You can throw your hot coffee at me if you want, but here’s something I read this morning in the news. This is what people are reading today: “sewage sludge is applied as a fertilizer in eastern Colorado” -not here in the Columbia Basin. It continues to say pharmaceuticals in sewage go into the ground and then the aquifers – then causing endocrine disruption and such.”. Have you ever heard of that being used? Is it used here?

REID REIMANN For most crops – probably 90% of crops – it can’t be used because processors do not allow that. Even for just composting underground crops like our potatoes, sewage is not allowed for at least a 16-month period of curing which pretty much takes care of any issues.

We go through GAP audits for “Good Agricultural Practices.” They show where our water ‘s coming from, check our certificate, how much water we put on the field, chemicals we use…. We run our neutron probe when watering, and get twice weekly reports to check the water passing through and that we’re not using] too much water.

The soil goes through a bank-out test which takes out all the moisture and adds it back into it to see how much water we can hold in all our fields. We’re doing all these things. In general, all farmers who are irrigating bigger crops and have certificates do that. We pay for the power, and we don’t use any more water than we must because of the quality of the crop and the expense of it. We’re doing what any other business does: keeping our cost down as much as we can and still get quality.

NWNL/ALISON JONES Do you practice organic farming?

RELLA REIMANN I’m not opposed to organic farming. But organic farmers can use chemicals all the time. It’s just that they can’t use commercial fertilizer. So many get chicken leavings from the big chicken processing plants to use that for fertilizer.

I recently saw men running around with white suits in an orchard wearing hazmat suits while applying chemicals in the orchards for organic crops. Why? We don’t have to do that, because we apply the chemicals safely. There is a lot misconception about organic crops.

NWNL/ALISON JONES I showed you a new graphic in a story this month showing how we’ll feed 2 billion more people by 2050, and the importance of farming and our food supplies. How will the Columbia and Snake River Basins contribute to future global food needs as they grow incrementally?

REID REIMANN Well, our state government needs to look to those making the policies that deal with the water. We have many special interest groups that hop in to try to buy water. They throw in wrenches in things and do whatever they can to simply slow water withdrawals from the river, saying to us, “You’re draining it dry.” The government doesn’t fight for us; and we don’t have a lot of farmers. So our population is a small percentage with a small voice.

We need Darryll, because he is an expert on water usage conservation and the fairness of application. Such voices are few and far in between supporting the agricultural community.

GLOBAL FOOD SUPPLY ISSUES

NWNL/ALISON JONES Darryll, what are your thoughts on the branding of farmers? Are there many critics? Is their voice weak or strong? It seems you and your CSRIA/Columbia Snake River Irrigators Association help these farmers by giving them a stronger voice. What else can be done?

DARRYLL OLSEN Reid and Rella are saying is that T & R Farms provide so much benefit for the country for the future. Very quickly, we’re going to see the economics of food coming into play. Worldwide, there’s more and more discussion about costs, impacts of food and the lack of irrigated agriculture to deal with these economic impacts. When you look at the literature, NGO’s, the World Bank and many other worldwide entities are focused on water use. They see the biggest threat is the lessening of food security, possible contamination and other environmental problems hindering the production of safe food? Will the economics of water supply affect the ability to produce food?

The new food-security issue is whether there is enough irrigated agricultural production in the world. And when they say “the world” their implication immediately shifts to the western United States. As Reed says, “This is the place where we can grow and have more production. We have the access to the water, we have the climate, we have ground and good soil.”

I’ll reply by starting with state government. Neither state nor national government have realized that we’re on an economic tipping point for fulfilling the world’s food supply needs. The “make or break” is in how governments respond to that. I do believe that we’ll see regulators giving higher priority on irrigated agriculture in this western US watershed.

That what will change things. A new environmental issue will emerge and be even more sexy than climate change and CO2. The world will focus on availability of irrigation water for producing needed food. That’s the new environmental issue, and that’s what it will take to change the perspective.

NWNL/ALISON JONES Our No Water No Life project covers and compares N. American and African watersheds to share their contrasts. We’ve used the expanded phrase “No Water, No Food, No Life, No Peace!” in some of our writings, to underline how food and water are so intertwined in the wellbeing of all.

DARRYLL OLSEN Yes, I’ve watched shifts in the food-security discussion in world organizations, World Bank, international economic organizations, and the many consultancies. All the NGO’s views on this and that issue on food security have gone from concerns about contamination and pollution to the impacts on world economies if we don’t have adequate irrigated production. They’re very specific about it.

Even more interesting is that shift from the third world [or emerging countries] to asking, “What are you going to do to the economic impact of food in the United States?” And we’re talking a little bit about this…. Now California is in a drought period, as is much of the western U.S. We see the food prices climbing weekly.

Just go to the store! This year we’ll probably see 20-30% increases in food prices as a result of California’s drought. This is very real. Hopefully, the economic impacts of that and what it does to our families and communities will sink through to our government and our regulators. I hope there will be recognition and discussion of this.

NWNL/ALISON JONES This March, No Water No Life was in California’s Central Valley, documenting those issues. Farmers there kept saying, “We need help; because otherwise, this country is going to struggle. We just won’t have enough to feed everybody the normal amount of berries, or whatever it is impacted. Consumers will start getting Mexican tomatoes, which have no quality regulations, as you’ve pointed out.

RELLA REIMANN Mexican tomatoes are really good but….

NWNL/ALISON JONES Yes, they’re pretty. But those who eat them will likely get sick. These are big issues that are shifting and changing.

THE LESSON OF SNAKE RIVER’S IRRIGATED FOODS

DARRYLL OLSEN I had lunch with our Department of Ecology’s State Director about 2 months ago. Our state governor and some municipal governors are trying to focus on climate change initiatives and CO2 issues. I asked the governor if she understood what’s happening now worldwide with irrigated agriculture, its production and the huge demand that’s being placed on farmers? I started walking her through this, saying:

If political leadership wants to be on the cutting edge of our next environmental movement, it should focus on agriculture in Washington State, Oregon and Idaho. This farm production issue is critical and very germane. Focusing on it now could dramatically impact the American people. It could start a popular environmental movement that would shift the perspective of farming and what farmers are doing.

NWNL/ALISON JONES Why should this region be the launching pad for this?

DARRYLL OLSEN In order to raise new awareness, you must start somewhere. It should start here because we have abundant water resources and so we’re not impairing environmental resources. We can produce and demonstrate to the world how efficient water practices increase food production and positively impact our national economy in the US – and elsewhere. But it needs to start right here. We have the resources. We just need the political will and intelligence to move forward.

NWNL/ALISON JONES What rewards do you foresee for such changes?

DARRYLL OLSEN The changes would reward farmers who’ve installed efficiency measures and are acting as chief stewards. The changes would give farmers access to new water supplies, thus increasing production and feeding more to the United States and the world in a cost-effective way.

NWNL/ALISON JONES Can your lessons be transferred to the Mississippi River Basin, which is another “breadbasket” in the US. You’ve said the Columbia-Snake River basin is different from other watersheds; but could lessons learned here work with politicians and farmers elsewhere?

DARRYLL OLSEN The Mississippi River Basin is so different and so unique. They have such a different set of crops that it would be much more difficult. But there are certainly places in the West, in South America and Asia where efficiency lessons, technology and the know-how learned here could be transferred to other countries.

NWNL/BARBARA FOLGER So that transferal requires similar environments?

DARRYLL OLSEN Yes. There are places with the ability to mirror what’s gone on here. Brazil has a lot of capability and growth, as does some of Central Asia.

WHERE ARE THE FUTURE FARMERS?

RELLA REIMANN We are very lucky that Reed, our only child, developed an interest in coming back to the land. The value in our farm is our water – and we know it. Many farmer’s children are not coming back to the land now. I know of only 8 young farmers in our county under 50 years old. Few want to deal with the cost and the hassles involved.

NWNL/ALISON JONES What’s going to happen?

RELLA REIMANN As Darryll said, they’ll plot their land for housing divisions and sell off their water. It’s difficult.

NWNL/BARBARA FOLGER So who’ll create the growth in farming you want?

REID REIMANN There are young farmers willing to grow food; but given the current climate with state and local governments, its more attractive at that age to sell it off if your farm is near enough to a town for subdivision. Or potential young farmers can sell the water off, fold up and quit. Farming is not attractive enough nowadays for the young to face the headaches of keeping a farm, given today’s regulations and very limited growth.

When we came down here, there were 5 dryland farms. So, 5 families worked together. Plus, for about 3 weeks, we probably had 2 other people on the farm to help. Now have 11 full-time families as support – and during harvest we’ll have 30 to 50 helping gather the crops we’ve raised with water.

During apple harvests, we’ll have 300-400 people on and off. That’s just on this orchard, where at one time there was nothing. Now there are wildlife habitats — just a few miles from the growth in the Tri-Cities, just downstream from these farms.

RELLA REIMANN I’ll be 70 in September. My dad loved history. I remember one day in Walden when he was sick, tired. He and mother were worried. Using my nickname, he said, “Peewee, people will kill for food and water. We need to make our citizenry understand that. It’s true. Our history has repeated that lesson.

NWNL/BARBARA FOLGER Sadly, people don’t learn from history.

DARRYLL OLSEN Regarding food scarcity and threats to food supplies, simple statistics show the importance of food to the US. Look at disposable, household income used to purchase food from World War II/1945 to the present. In 1945, households spent 26% of their household income on food. Today we spend 6.5%. Available disposable income created the US consumer economy. In European and Asian countries, close to 9% of household income is spent on food. Russians spend 26% of their disposable household income on food supply.

The world’s financial institutions and others are recognizing that we’re going to start turning that trend line around in the US and other places. The economic threat is the ability to create a consumer society and put money in other sectors when the food supply doesn’t exist due to inadequate irrigated-food production.

NWNL/ALISON JONES Thank you Reid, Rella and Darryll, for sharing your family’s farming history, struggles and successes – plus your valuable global insights into both food and freshwater availability.

NWNL/BARBARA FOLGER We just cannot thank you enough.

Posted by NWNL on November 20, 2024.
Transcription edited and condensed for clarity by Alison M. Jones.

Three Generations of Irrigators Columbia River Basin