CA Water Regulations and Fewer Responding to NASS Surveys

**The California Water Resources Control Board has approved a regulation seeking to promote more efficient water use to address an anticipated 10% water supply shortfall by 2040.

The regulation applies to the state’s largest urban retail water suppliers, which serve 95% of California.

The goal is to produce about a half million acre-feet of water savings annually by 2040, enough to supply more than 1.4 million households.

**The number of farmers responding to surveys from the National Ag Statistics Service has been dropping.

According to Ag Web Dot Com, in the early 1990s, response rates for NASS crop surveys were 80 to 85%, but by the late 2010s, response rates had fallen below 60% in some cases.

Factors affecting response rates include concerns about data privacy and constraints from farmers.

Increasing requests for information from farmers also discourages some responses.

**The USDA is terminating Marketing Order Number 929, which regulates the handling of cranberries grown in several states, including Minnesota, Oregon, Washington, Massachusetts, and several others.

In October 2023, USDA suspended the Cranberry Marketing Committee’s authority after a continuance referendum failed to show producer support.

During the comment period, the Ag Marketing Service received only five comments and it was determined that termination was appropriate.

More information is available at www.ams.usda.gov .