Farm margins in Utah have been tight in recent years, but the entire world seems to be conspiring against farmers in 2026. Record low snowpack combined with high fertilizer and fuel costs due to the conflict in Iran have made a difficult situation untenable.
One solution to the dual problems of water scarcity and high input costs might be water leasing.
Hannah Freeze, the deputy Great Salt Lake commissioner, has been busy coordinating with farmers across the Great Salt Lake Basin to implement a program that would use state funds to lease water rights from farmers.
“We want our producers to be able to value their water as a commodity," Freeze explained, "and so use it as part of their crop rotation.”
The basic idea around the water leasing program is simple. Water is scarce in Utah, and especially so in the Great Salt Lake Basin. That makes it valuable to the state, which is willing to pay farmers to send their water to the rapidly-diminishing lake instead of using it to irrigate their fields.
“We want it to be really flexible," Freeze said. "So, you tell us essentially the months of the year that you want to irrigate, whether you want to forego irrigating for the whole season, or whether you want to do partial season and lease at the beginning or end of the year.”
Payments through the program won't be static. According to House Bill 410, the 2026 bill that provides funding for the water leasing program, the commissioner’s office will consider commodity prices when establishing rates for water payments.
Then there’s proximity. The closer to the Great Salt Lake a farmer is, the more valuable their water.
“The closer that you are to the lake, the higher price per acre our office is willing to pay to lease your water," Freeze said. "It's just a higher likelihood that we can actually shepherd it to the lake. The further you go up the basin, you know, think like Summit County, Cache County, it's harder to get it down.”
The water leasing program was just approved by the Utah Legislature and granted almost $3 million for agricultural water payments. While this is a promising option for farmers to fall back on in the future, it unfortunately won’t be available until 2027.
For now, Freeze is pushing for farmers to register for water leasing programs.
“If anybody is interested in leasing, we recommend they get their change application in place," Freeze said. "It doesn't commit you to leasing water, but you'll have the paperwork in place, and it's done once. Once that's in place, a producer every year can see what the weather is doing, see what the markets are doing, and then decide how much water they want to lease.”
Freeze said that the leasing program registration provides flexibility to farmers. It’s a tool that can be useful, and while one doesn’t have to use it, it could make a big difference down the line given Utah’s ongoing megadrought.
“I try to sell it like buying a hunting license," Freeze said. "It doesn't mean you have to kill anything, but if you want to, then it's already in place, and then you can make a game time decision to be able to say, 'man, nobody could have expected this to be the worst snow pack ever. Maybe the best option for me is just to lease this year.'”
This story is published through the Great Salt Lake Collaborative, a solutions journalism initiative that partners news, education and media organizations to help inform people about the plight of the Great Salt Lake—and what can be done to make a difference before it is too late. Read all of our stories at greatsaltlakenews.org.