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The main agricultural use of water is for irrigation of crops. Beneficiaries of agricultural use include wealthy landowners but also farm workers and consumers. In California, particularly, in the United States, water mining of ground water far beyond its rate of recharge, supports an unsustainable agricultural economy.[1]


Contamination by agricultural chemicals[]

Runoff of agricultural water may become contaminated affecting ground water and surface water; nitrates are the most common pollutant.[2]

Notes[]

  1. [http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/31/us/farmers-try-political-force-to-twist-open-californias-taps.html "Farmers Try Political Force to Twist Open California’s Taps]: Few in agriculture have shaped the debate over water more than the several hundred owners of an arid finger of farmland west of Fresno." article by By Michael Wines and Jennifer Medina in The New York Times Magazine December 30, 2015
  2. "Farmworkers’ Endless Worry: Tainted Tap Water" article by Patricia Leigh Brown in The New York Times November 13, 2012
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