Creative Commons/Steven Damron

Recession? Drought?

Forgetaboutit.

California’s agricultural sector reaped record revenues from 2007 to 2009 — during California's most recent drought — according to a study by the Oakland-based nonprofit Pacific Institute, a research group that promotes environmental protection.

The income flowed despite a global economic downturn and regulations requiring farmers to leave water in rivers for the sake of endangered Delta fish and residential water customers. The 81,500 farms and ranches in California earned $34.8 billion in gross revenue in 2009, the study found, and the number of farming jobs grew.

Environmentalists and advocates of water policy reform heralded the findings as proof that water allocations for farmers should remain limited to protect wildlife.

“Overall, we think there’s enough water going to the agricultural sector to support farming — and Pacific Institute showed that,” Environmental Defense Fund water policy analyst Spreck Rosekrans said.

The California Farm Bureau Federation, meanwhile, said its members secured the large annual revenues in recent years by taking innovative but unsustainable steps, such as trading water, allowing more fields to lie fallow and drawing on groundwater supplies.

“What you’ve seen here is farmers cobbling together a catch-as-catch-can strategy,” Bureau environmental counsel Chris Scheuring said. “Farmers have had to go to groundwater extraction, and that may not be sustainable in the long term.”

Scheuring said California needs to invest in new and expanded reservoirs and water-transfer systems to ensure that farmers can continue to grow the crops that feed and provide an economic bonanza for the state. Such proposals are fiercely opposed by environmentalists, who characterize today's Californian farming industry as a corporate water guzzler.

The 103-page report takes direct aim at claims that Endangered Species Act rules, which reduce the amount of water that Central Valley farmers are allowed to take out of rivers in order to protect delta smelt and salmon, crippled the regional economy.

"[L]egal environmental protections accounted for less than a quarter of the overall [agricultural water allocation] reductions in 2009," the report states. "[T]hese reductions were not due to the ESA alone but to a wide range of federal and state policies."

The report's lead author, Juliet Christian-Smith, said the study was designed to help California prepare sustainable, long-term approaches for managing limited water supplies.

“We don’t know when the next drought will be,” Christian-Smith said. “But we know there will be another.”

The 2007 to 2009 drought led to mandatory water conservation measures in some cities. It was the 12th driest three-year period in recorded climate history, the study found. More serious droughts occurred in the late 1920s, 1970s and 1980s.

Climate change is expected to reduce the amount of rain and snow falling on California each year, while population growth is expected to put more pressure on the state's reservoirs.

After this year's heavy rainfalls, the federal government plans to increase the amount of Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta water available for farmers.

The report can be downloaded from the Pacific Institute's website.

Correction: A previous version of this article incorrectly stated that the Pacific Institute report found farmers had earned record profits from 2007 to 2009. The report refers only to revenues.