LOS ANGELES - Ever since the Gold Rush, California farmers have staked their claim to water and ferociously protected the rights to use it to irrigate the crops that have made the state the grocer for the nation.

But on Friday, in a sign of how the record-setting drought is shaking up established ways here, state officials accepted an offer from farmers in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta to give up a quarter of their water this season, by leaving part of their land unplanted or finding other ways to reduce their water use.

The deal is an important concession from growers that officials hope will prompt similar agreements throughout the state’s agricultural industry, which uses 80 percent of the water consumed in the state in a normal year.

Farmers up and down the state feel besieged, and they have fought back with public relations campaigns to emphasize their conservation efforts and explain how their produce feeds much of the country.

While the deal made on Friday is unlikely to have a dramatic effect on food prices or the water supply, the concession by the farmers was a pre-emptive effort to limit potentially steeper cuts. (The New York Times)

Story Date: May 25, 2015