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In vino veritas, in aqua lucrum: Farmland investment, environmental uncertainty, and groundwater access in California’s Cuyama Valley

Author

Listed:
  • Madeleine Fairbairn

    (University of California)

  • Jim LaChance

    (University of California, Berkeley)

  • Kathryn Teigen De Master

    (University of California, Berkeley)

  • Loka Ashwood

    (University of Kentucky)

Abstract

This paper explores the relationship between farmland investment and environmental uncertainty. It examines how farmland investors seek to “render land investible” (Li, Trans Inst Br Geographers 39:589–602, 2014) in spite of drought, groundwater depletion, and changing regulations. To do so, we analyze a single case study: the purchase of 8000 acres of dry rangeland in California’s Cuyama Valley by the Harvard University endowment for use in creating an irrigated vineyard. Drawing from interviews with Cuyama Valley farmers and community members, participant observation at community meetings, and public document analysis, we make two primary contributions to understandings of uncertain resource materiality in farmland investment. First, this case reveals that investors can turn environmental uncertainty into an advantage, exploiting both the temporal uncertainties associated with resource management under climate change and the spatial uncertainties inherent to all subsurface resources. We argue that the material and legal uncertainties of groundwater access provide investors with a potentially lucrative opening to assert their preferred land imaginaries and improve their property values. In the Cuyama Valley they did so through both participation in groundwater governance and the establishment of water-related infrastructure on their property. Second, this case highlights that the asset-making processes involved in farmland investment may be as much vertical as they are horizontal. The need to map and measure the uncertain vertical dimension of land creates an outsized role for scientific expertise in farmland assetization.

Suggested Citation

  • Madeleine Fairbairn & Jim LaChance & Kathryn Teigen De Master & Loka Ashwood, 2021. "In vino veritas, in aqua lucrum: Farmland investment, environmental uncertainty, and groundwater access in California’s Cuyama Valley," Agriculture and Human Values, Springer;The Agriculture, Food, & Human Values Society (AFHVS), vol. 38(1), pages 285-299, February.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:agrhuv:v:38:y:2021:i:1:d:10.1007_s10460-020-10157-y
    DOI: 10.1007/s10460-020-10157-y
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Froud, Julie, 2003. "The Private Finance Initiative: risk, uncertainty and the state," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 28(6), pages 567-589, August.
    2. Oane Visser, 2017. "Running out of farmland? Investment discourses, unstable land values and the sluggishness of asset making," Agriculture and Human Values, Springer;The Agriculture, Food, & Human Values Society (AFHVS), vol. 34(1), pages 185-198, March.
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    6. Stefan Ouma, 2020. "This can(’t) be an asset class: The world of money management, “society†, and the contested morality of farmland investments," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 52(1), pages 66-87, February.
    7. Leigh Johnson, 2014. "Geographies of Securitized Catastrophe Risk and the Implications of Climate Change," Economic Geography, Clark University, vol. 90(2), pages 155-185, April.
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    Cited by:

    1. Debra Perrone & Melissa M. Rohde & Courtney Hammond Wagner & Rebecca Anderson & Samantha Arthur & Ngodoo Atume & Meagan Brown & Lauren Esaki-Kua & Martha Gonzalez Fernandez & Kelly A. Garvey & Katheri, 2023. "Stakeholder integration predicts better outcomes from groundwater sustainability policy," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 14(1), pages 1-14, December.

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