NUID has a junior water right in the Deschutes Basin. However, despite perennial water scarcity, NUID farmers and ag businesses have become one of the most water-efficient irrigated regions in the country and have worked for decades to develop unique international specialty seed markets, including becoming the global leader in carrot seed production. The drought and disaster conditions create devastating losses for farmers in the short-term and threaten the sustainability of valuable niche markets in the long-term.

NUID has been engaged in a collaborative effort to develop a Habitat Conservation Plan (HCP) to comply with the Endangered Species Act (ESA) and protect the threatened Oregon Spotted Frog and other species in the Deschutes and Crooked River basins. The implementation of the HCP has the potential to be a major ESA success story of a natural resource industry working together with federal agencies and environmental interests to improve a river ecosystem while sustaining family farms and the local economy. Unfortunately, obligations to US Fish and Wildlife under the HCP compound the severity of the drought. The financial and economic consequences to NUID—and the irrigators and family farms it serves—threaten the ability to meet HCP obligations, putting at risk over a decade of effort to conserve water, improve river health and maintain the viability of irrigated agriculture.

Farmers throughout NUID began the year farming a fraction of their farmland to conserve water. Now many farms are anticipating disaster-level yields for some crops due to extreme heat, water rationing and water shut-off two months before the end of the irrigation season. Unfortunately, as revenue shrinks dramatically, expenses are the same or higher as farmers struggle to pay for overhead and inputs (including the same water fees for less water), mortgage and lease payments, and costs to maintain soil health and viability of fallowed farmland taken out of production.