WASHINGTON, D.C. — With flooding in the Midwest and drought in the West, agriculture experts are focusing more on water quality and quantity than ever before.

The Farm Foundation, recognizing the importance of water availability and water rights, hosted a forum focused on the issue this month. Neil Conklin, president of the Farm Foundation, said water has been treated as a regional issue for years but there are national issues that need to be considered.

“What’s happening in the West is likely to happen in the Midwest and then the Southeast,” said Richard Howitt, a specialist in water markets and professor of agriculture and resource economics at the Center for Watershed Sciences at the University of California, Davis.

He said water is starting to be viewed as the commodity it is rather than an unlimited resource. Water is being used differently than it was previously, with different environmental demands. It is used not just for food production and human use, but energy needs.

Instead of constant access to surface water, the United States has started tapping sources of groundwater for normal use, and he said it is not a sustainable practice. In California, specifically, groundwater is being used to help farmers and keep prices from increasing dramatically, but it is not a practice the state can maintain, he explained.

“We have to bring agriculture into a steady state with the environment,” Howitt said.

Legislation is starting to move toward requirements that would mean farms can use fewer chemicals, which will more readily allow the water to be reused, but consumers are also demanding more sustainable agriculture practices. “We vote, as consumers, when we buy … Consumers are increasingly concerned about how their food is grown, where it is grown,” he said.

He speaks with farmers and ranchers who have started using more organic practices on part of the farm only to discover better yield because of improved soil health. Healthy soil is able to retain more water. “You increase efficiency, but the farmers will, quite rationally, use that water for other crops,” Howitt said.

Barry Bogseth is the managing director and head of MetLife’s Agricultural Portfolio Unit. He said looking at water availability is a long-term issue when considering an agricultural loan, considering availability 10 or more years in the future. “I’m confident that ag and the regulatory policies will … eventually correct themselves,” Bogseth said. “We need to be looking at a national scope.”

Over the past few decades, he has seen dairy move from one area of the country to another as different areas become more appropriate for growing crops. Currently, meters are measuring the quantity of water used, but not its quality, and producers want to know what the quality of water is coming off their land because they do not want to be viewed as polluters, he said.

There is also growing demand to have states collaborate on the use of water. He said agreements often take litigation, but they can be reached.

Lynn Broaddus, a consultant specializing in water sustainability and resiliency with Broadview Collaborative, said the Great Lakes Compact, an agreement between the United States and Canada, was set in place to try to preserve the quantity of water in the Great Lakes. It took years to reach the agreement, requiring approval from state governments as well as the national government and Canada.

“When we started this … people said, ‘What’s the big deal with water?’” Broaddus recalled. Now, people are beginning to see a loss in water quantity and quality. “We’re in a lose-lose position.”

There are increasing costs to removing agricultural chemicals from water, but the water needs to be cleaned and reused to meet all needs. Farmers lose money and nutrition in this, consumers lose money and health and fisheries lose financially because less oxygen in the water means fewer fish.

She said more research needs to be done in how to treat animal waste water. “Scientists say this is a long-term situation,” Broaddus said. “The federal government can only do so much, but I think they’re doing a good job leading the conversation.”

More information can be found on the Farm Foundation website, www.farmfoundation.org