The Global Water And Hunger Crisis

Floor Speech

The Global Water And Hunger Crisis

Mr. COSTA. Mr. Speaker, I rise this evening to talk about the challenges we face both in this country, my district, and around the world on critical issues affecting our country and the world, and that is food, water, and hunger. Because without water, you can't grow food, and without the sufficient sustainability of our ability to produce food in this country and around the world, hunger continues to be a pressing issue both at home and abroad.

Next week, Thanksgiving will be celebrated in this country, and we will all hopefully be with our families and friends. But in some parts of America, people will go hungry. In some parts of my district that has been ground zero on a drought that has been caused by a combination of regulatory and dry conditions for 3 consecutive years in California, we will have people in food lines. Sadly, these food lines have existed for months, and sadly, these food lines will continue throughout the winter because we have a problem in California. But that problem is exemplified throughout the world, and that is without sufficient water supplies, sustainable water supply, you cannot grow food, and without that ability, hunger persists.

On October 15, Bill Gates spoke at the 2009 Food Prize Symposium about the importance of productivity and sustainability of agriculture to feed our Nation and the world. He said, ``This global effort to help small farmers is endangered by an ideological wedge that threatens to split the movement in two. On one side is a technological approach that increases productivity. On the other side is an environmental approach that promotes sustainability. Productivity or sustainability--they say you have to choose.''

Bill Gates said, ``It's a false choice, and it's dangerous for the field. It blocks important advances. It breeds hostility among people who need to work together. And it makes it hard to launch a comprehensive program to help poor farmers. The fact is, we need both productivity and sustainability--and there is no reason we can't have both.''

The San Joaquin Valley in my district in central California is a good example that we must have both, yet we find ourselves in a regulatory drought because we are faced with posing the question: Should we have sustainability or productivity? Farmers who produce some of the most varied amount of production anywhere in the world have proven that you can have both productivity and sustainability, provided, provided you have water. That's why Bill Gates went on to say, ``That's why our foundation works closely with local farmers' groups. And that's why we are one of the largest funders of sustainable approaches such as no-till farming, rainwater harvesting, drip irrigation, and biological nitrous fixation.

``The environment also benefits from higher productivity. When productivity is too low, people start farming on grazing land, cutting down forests, using any new acreage they can to grow food. When productivity is high, people can farm on less land.''

In our valley, we have proven that time and time again. I ask my colleagues to ensure that we hold this administration accountable.

Last week, Secretary of the Interior Salazar made a positive statement. He said, on November 9, that the Department of the Interior will make a public announcement taking actions on California's water crisis next year to make sure that the intertie to Gates, the diversification of refuge water in level 2 and in level 4 supplies are made available to farmers and that the Patterson fish screen and pipeline will, in fact, take place next year. These are important.

The last administration left these on the backlog for years. This administration pretends they are going to take place next year. I will hold them accountable. These projects are very important. Again, without water, you can't have food and you can't have jobs.

I urge this administration to continue to move forward on these important efforts along with the National Academy of Science's attempt to look at the biological opinions that are providing the constraints to allow for the flexible operations of the Federal and State projects that provide the water to allow us to grow the food to have the jobs.

As I close, my colleagues, let me tell you, we are talking about trying to get the economy going. We are going to be talking about a jobs package this year when we come back from Thanksgiving. If we provide water to the people of the San Joaquin Valley, we will have 30,000 jobs that were eliminated this summer because we had no water. It's very simple. All we have to do is focus on flexibility with these biological opinions.

We hope that before the National Academy of Science completes their work, the administration will understand that regardless of what kind of a rainfall year we have this winter and snow in the Sierra, it's important that we are sensitive to operational flexibility of the State and Federal projects.

I urge all of my colleagues to understand that, as Bill Gates said, sustainability and productivity are key. You can have both. It should be a false choice. Water provides food, and that equals jobs.

Source