Farmers Debate Selling Water to Drought-Ridden Southern California

The state water board said it's assessing weekly whether to cut even more water, and farmers downstream aren't sure what the summer holds. "Individual producers won't know the ramifications for a few weeks," said Joel Nelsen of the California Citrus Mutual. "What the state has done is make a deal so that others can make water deals, and then the state changes its mind, which potentially—likely—undoes all the deals."

      Mark Borba predicted it'll all end up in court. He's currently farming only 6,900 acres out of his 9,000. Next year, that number could go down to 4,500 acres. "There's very little trust among the water users," he said. "Urban folks are always suspicious of [agriculture] and [agriculture] suspicious of environmentalists, and it goes round and round. I think there will be some adjudication of water rights."