The world’s two largest carrot producers sued small farmers in California’s Cuyama Basin over the right to use local groundwater.  But that didn’t go over well.

Locals are now calling for a carrot boycott and residents are demanding that the large carrot producers: Grimmway Farms and Bolthouse Farms, drop their water rights lawsuit. 

They also want them to reimburse local farmers for legal fees, and are seeking an end to corporate over-pumping of groundwater.More groundwater is being pulled from the basin than rainfall can replenish, despite the recent end to the historic drought that began in 2014.  

The pumping of groundwater in California wasn’t regulated until the drought began.  Stricter rules surrounding agricultural use of groundwater and a lack of consensus in farming communities regarding that usage have prompted lawsuits throughout the state.

The ongoing water shortage is everyone’s problem in Cuyama. 

Many small farmers don’t see a way to further curb their water usage, and residents say they shouldn’t have to compromise on the water used to brush their teeth or grow a garden.

Grimmway Farms and Bolthouse Farms say they’ve followed the cutbacks mandated by new local and state policies, but want a more fair approach to how the water in the region’s overdrafted basin is shared.  

Both carrot farms sit on the most overdrafted part of the basin.

“I don’t want the aquifer to get dewatered because then all I have is a piece of gravel, no water, which means it’s desert ground, which is of no value to anybody,” said Dan Clifford, vice president and general counsel of Bolthouse Land Co.

But Bolthouse Farms now wants to withdraw from the case, saying it has no right to the groundwater and intends to slash its water by 65 percent by 2040.

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