‘Quite a surprise.’ Yolo County farmer lauded for her groundwater advocacy work
The longtime owner of a Yolo County mainstay farm is being acknowledged for her efforts — but not in farming.
Annie Main, co-founder of Good Humus Farm in Capay, said she never expected to spend her retirement years advocating for sustainable groundwater policies across rural Yolo County, but she said someone had to do it.
The work she has done with the Yolo County Board of Supervisors and the Yolo Subbasin Groundwater Agency (YSGA) led to her earning a Farm Advocate of the Year award from the Davis-based Community Alliance with Family Farmers.
“Water is life, and everybody depends on it,” Main said. “It’s a conversation for the whole of how we’re going to deal with our future.”
Rural Yolo County, where Good Humus Farm resides, has been increasingly vulnerable to drought conditions in recent decades, according to Main. When she began talking with her neighbors about the shared groundwater issues they faced, she realized it was time to get involved in local water policy on behalf of her community.
Main started learning about the county’s water policies and began attending Yolo County Board of Supervisors meetings, where she connected with county representatives and kicked off a collaboration that is still in progress.
“I felt like I couldn’t sit back and hope that the county or the YSGA ... would solve our problem or ensure that there will be water here,” Main said. “All of that motivated me to become that catalyst for change, so to speak.”
Rural Yolo County’s groundwater scarcity
Main said she has groundwater level measurements from her farm’s well as early as 1989. In the decades her family has owned the farm, water levels have dropped by 100 feet.
“If you’re looking into the future, that is a decline, and if you see more wells going in ... that decline can only continue,” she said. “It’s an unsettling place to be.”
Not only does low groundwater affect the ability to irrigate crops, but it leads to significant costs for small farms. Main said water pumps around her community, including her own, had to be lowered due to the dropping water level, which led to thousands of dollars in pipe replacements and at least a week of no water.
“I looked at my neighbors, my surrounding neighbors, and they too were having water issues,” Main said. “There’s probably 20-ish landowners, and five of them had to replace their wells ... 12 had to lower their pumps. So this whole neighborhood that I’m in is having problems. That woke me up even further that it’s not just our farm.”
Stepping into community advocacy
Main found that a rural region of Yolo County — mapped in a large U shape from just west of Davis up to the county’s northern edge and down toward Esparto and Winters — had a notable lack of data on groundwater levels. Anecdotal evidence would not be enough to convince the county that protection for the vulnerable rural areas was necessary, Main said.
She began a groundwater monitoring program in her neighborhood in 2023, which involves area farms making seasonal well water level measurements to report to the YSGA. At the same time, she is gathering with her neighbors often to discuss their water issues.
Main then takes her community’s concerns to the Yolo County Board of Supervisors’ meetings. Prior to this, Main had never attended a board meeting, nor did she have deep knowledge of water policy.
Though she said putting herself in this new environment was uncomfortable at first, Main said going to local government meetings and making connections with officials and agencies who focus on groundwater policy has been crucial to her efforts.
“You look at people and think of all the knowledge that they hold that you have zero understanding of,” Main said. “Trying to understand everybody’s boxes and look for solutions is quite a puzzle.”
Through her advocacy at the county board, Main helped secure a 45-day moratorium on drilling new wells in the county’s water-sensitive regions, which was later extended to 10 total months. Once it ends this August, Main said there will be an opportunity to request one final moratorium for one year, which can help area farmers gather as much information as possible.
However, the subbasin groundwater agency still needs at least two years’ worth of data to come up with a suitable sustainability plan, according to Main. In the meantime, Main continues to meet with county supervisors, YSGA members and her neighbors to voice ongoing concerns and collaborate on policy solutions.
“What I’ve found with the board of supervisors and the county staff and the YSGA, they’re all listening,” she said. “They are really wanting to work with and listen to the community.”
Main said Yolo County Supervisor Lucas Frerichs nominated her for the Community Alliance with Family Farmers award, which came as “quite a surprise.”
“I kind of felt seen as to the energy that I’m taking to work with groundwater sustainability,” Main said. “You never know who’s watching or who’s listening or how you affect others.”
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