The Search for the Last Drop

Drilling for water can be an “iffy” task at best. Even with a water diviner close by, the results are not always what you can expect and more often you get nothing.

At $25 a foot (it can be lower or higher depending on your area and the geological formations) to drill, the search for that elusive aquifer for irrigation is an expensive operation particularly when you reach depths of 500 feet or more. Found H2O at those deep layers is also very costly to bring to the surface. It takes a lot of power to suck that water up.

Here is another stick in the eye: that well water can dry up very quickly. Increasingly, new aquifers have a finite amount of moisture limited to single growing season.

Agriculture is the biggest user and waster of water on a global scale. Here in the United States, according to the USDA, agriculture uses 80% of all the consumptive water. California farming alone uses 4 times more water than urban consumption. You will find that the stats do not differ much in other countries.

India, for example, is losing well water at a rapid rate and thousands of farmers have chosen to exit out from both their farming activities and their lives. The suicide rate for farmers there is among the highest in the world.

Not just dry in California, the Ogallala Aquifer, which supplies water to most of the farming in the American heartland, is in need of a recharge. Wells are drying up in Kansas. More land is parched.

Open irrigation systems such as field flooding and pivot sprinklers are extremely common and can evaporate 50% of the water and more…not very efficient when it comes to preserving the most precious resource on the planet.

Food security is being challenged in ways that we never thought imaginable. The bottom line: no water, no food.

How do we use less water, grow more food on less land at a lower cost?

The answer: CEA (Controlled Agriculture Environment), better known as indoor cultivation.

I have studied this indoor agricultural phenomenon for over 40 years. When water was plentiful, farmers would scale with large tracts of land and irrigate accordingly. Many would test with a cheap hoop house (a plastic covered greenhouse) or two and, after a few seasons, leave a rusting frame as evidence that it was back to farming as usual. For a greenhouse operation to be profitable, you must scale in a big way.

There is nothing like a water shortage to force a different perspective and explore sustainable options like re-wrapping that frame. Alas, greenhouse technology has improved much! We will not use hoop houses at Dedicated To You. We have something far, far better.

Indoor cultivation can cut evaporation losses by 80% and use less water while increasing yields 30-50 times when compared to the same equivalent land outside. Water is contained and reused and not allowed to seep away underground to be lost. Cultivation is year-around. Indoor farming crews are not seasonal as jobs are yearlong. Logistics are superior as such facilities can be located near cities reducing transportation and delivery costs significantly.