If you haven’t heard of the Wisconsin Rice Growers Association it’s because there isn’t one. In fact, when it comes to rice cultivation in the Dairy State, Michael Schläppi, a biology professor at the Marquette University, is the only person doing it. 

“I’m the oddball,” says Schläppi, wearing waders and a full brim hat as he troubleshoots an irrigation issue on a small plot of farmland he’s leased in Port Washington, 25 miles north of Milwaukee.

He’s researching stress tolerance in plants, particularly cold tolerance in different strains of rice. More than 40,000 varieties are grown worldwide and some stand a better chance of thriving here than others. The capacity to endure cold is a must for any living organism considering roots in Wisconsin.

Schläppi has his reasons for experimenting with rice. “For starters,” he says, “it feeds about half of the world’s population.”

According to the US Rice Producers Association, 1 billion humans (besides Schläppi) actively cultivate rice on 500 million hectares—11 percent of the world’s arable land. Meanwhile, 3 billion depend on rice as a dietary staple. Indeed, with the exception of sex, war and religion, the cultural significance of rice—its impact on civilization for thousands of years—is unparalleled.

 “We buy ours, here in Wisconsin, from California or Arkansas,” says Schläppi.

The average American, ingests about 25 pounds of rice per year—four in the form of beer. About 80 percent of that rice is grown in California, Arkansas, Texas, Louisiana, Missouri and Mississippi. The rest, varieties such as jasmine and basmati, is imported largely from south and southeast Asia. And while the United States grows only 2 percent of the world’s rice, that which we export (mainly to Mexico, Central America, the Middle East, the Caribbean and Northeast Asia) constitutes over 10 percent of the global trade.

“Imagine the carbon footprint for it to travel these distances,” says Schläppi, “from California to Wisconsin alone.”

California, Calories and the Need for Water

As increased climate awareness solicits a hard look at the inefficiency (often absurdity) of certain global import/exports, the drought facing California, now in its fourth unrelenting year, calls into question the state’s ability to continue producing the crops on which the nation has come to depend. California farmers are scrambling, rotating what they grow and where, in an attempt to use, as efficiently as possible, the dregs of a water supply currently failing to (adequately) replenish itself.

This “unprecedented moisture deficit” (a term used by Richard Waycott, the President and CEO of the Almond Board of California) has gotten so bad that Tom “Magnum, P.I.” Selleck recently paid $21,685.55 to settle allegations he’d illegally trucked thousands of gallons from a public hydrant in Thousand Oaks to his nearby ranch in Hidden Valley. His plants were no doubt thirsty but California farmers have it even worse. Hundreds of thousands of acres of California farmland are sitting dry and idle, and the ripple effects of decreased production are crippling farming communities—real people whose livelihoods are contingent on the occasional rain. Fallow fields require as much labor as they do water: zero.

In April, Gov. Jerry Brown (D) issued a statewide emergency executive order to cut back water usage, the first order to do so in the state’s history.

“Today we are standing on dry grass where there should be five feet of snow,” said Brown at a speech in the Sierra Nevada. “This historic drought demands unprecedented action.”

The restrictions, however, applied largely to urban usage—exempting the state’s already struggling farmers. Critics, relishing the idiom drop in the bucket, pointed out that excluding from restrictions the industry responsible for 80 percent of the state’s water use would ultimately fail to affect meaningful conservation. In June, some senior water rights holders—those with claims to water usage dating back to the early 20th century—experienced their first mandatory cutbacks ever. In one Central Valley district, drawing water from the streams and rivers, historic fountains of wealth, has already resulted in fines in the millions of dollars.

Small farms that lack the resources and infrastructure to access the increasingly limited supply are hurting the most, but farmers across the board and, subsequently the state itself, stand to lose billions in revenue for the second year in a row. Because production costs represent only one of many factors considered in product pricing, some economists say consumers, at least for the moment, will be insulated from paying higher prices nationally. If transportation and packaging costs remain consistent, produce imported from other regions (and countries) can supplement the supply enough to keep up with demand. But what about the next five or 10 years? As debates surge in California—about everything from free market control of water to the need for desalinization technology—the lack of significant rainfall and the nonexistent snowpack in the Sierras persist.