California’s unfolding drought now three years running may prove to be the worst in its recorded history. Unprecedented action emerging from effective leadership is needed. This crisis will further rock the nation’s staggering economy and food supply. Farms have begun to fail, communities to crumble, food prices to rise, and more people are losing jobs and going hungry. Like the south’s hurricane Katrina, this drought provides a dry run for combined national and local response to global climate change.

Although few have yet noticed, this is a national crisis because California produces 50% of the nation’s fruits, nuts and vegetables, and a majority of the nation’s salad, strawberries, and premium winegrapes. State and federal agencies that deliver water to farms up and down the Great Central Valley are preparing for cuts of 85% to 100%. Coastal communities may begin rationing programs within weeks. Even with increases of 50% in ground water pumping, which is clearly not sustainable, in the Central Valley alone up to 60,000 jobs and $1.5 billion in income will be lost, according to a UC Davis agricultural economist, Richard Howitt.

Once they begin, such massive natural events like drought or hurricanes are beyond our human ability to stop. The human challenge is to offer effective response. Neither the federal nor state government can mitigate the impacts of this drought without massive cooperation. A new public dynamic involving all levels of government, business, and community must engage the challenge.

In light of this reality, we must ask ourselves important questions. Will our leaders maintain a long-term vision as they frame and communicate tough decisions in order to extract meaningful learning from the pain and suffering that is inevitable? Will government provide a rapid, flexible, and clear framework for competing interests to resolve conflict? Despite the pressures, will agricultural, environmental, and urban interests think beyond the immediate, to arrive at agreements that lead to sustainable resolutions to conflicting needs?

Our answers to these questions, lead us to recommend three immediate actions in response to the drought.

First, President Obama and Governor Schwarzenegger should form a federal-state drought response team that includes new leadership unconfined by inflexible organizations and tired thinking about water supply management.

Second, the President and Governor should direct the drought response team to begin with the following four premises: a) food production in California is a national security priority and simply importing more food is not a solution to the problem; b) all responses must emerge from a primary respect for ecological systems and those who steward the resources within those systems to water, feed and cloth us; c) both immediate and long-term responses are required to deal with the current impacts and root causes of climate change and drought; and d) both urban and rural communities must share the burdens that will be required.

Third, the secretaries of the US departments of Agriculture and Interior, Tom Vilsack and Ken Salazar, should ensure that their top deputies are tied directly to California’s farmers and environmental organizations because without trusted Californians at the top in Washington, drought response will be much less effective.

By taking these suggestions, the state and nation could minimize the pain caused by this drought and simultaneously evolve methods for responding to climate changes that will come more rapidly and powerfully over time.

Photos: ScottAnger, Danny McL

But they are not alone – a handful of other high-profile thinkers will also be creating important policy decisions that will have implications for food, and it will be anyone’s guess how Obama will manage this diverse stable of talent.

The biggest change that Obama indicates he will be making is an increased commitment to biofuels.  He cemented that commitment with his early appointment of Steve Chu, currently the Director of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, to be Secretary of Energy. Chu is a Nobel Laureate dedicated to alternative fuel sources, and has been a strong supporter of controversial biofuel research, including public-private partnerships between the University of California and the energy company BP.  But many people in the sustainable food world, a growing lobby in itself, have voiced strong concern against the reliance on an energy source that will decrease cropland for food, increase the use of chemical pesticides, herbicides, and fertilizers, and potentially increase our net contribution to global warming.

Chu will be joined by John Holdren, appointed by Obama as Assistant to the President for Science and Technology, Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, and Co-Chair of the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology – in short, he will be the “president’s scientist.” Holdren will purportedly largely manage energy and environmental policy, therefore overlapping with Chu in the area of biofuels. Holdren has publicly expressed a need to get a handle on global warming, but it is unclear what voice he will bring to the biofuel debate.

Finally, there is the recent nomination of Sanjay Gupta to the position of surgeon general. The surgeon general typically works with the president to give a public face to health issues, and it has been speculated that Gupta might also be involved in developing health policy. As a no-nonsense doctor on CNN and elsewhere, Gupta appears to have a sensible approach to personal health, so there is hope he might embrace an holistic perspective friendly to whole and local foods as medicine.

The question remains whether Gupta, Daschle, and the rest of the team that Obama is putting together to tackle our health care mess will have the ability to take on the pharmaceutical and insurance industries that have locked down what health care currently means in America.

But in the end, while Obama has assembled his Dream Team of science and policy advisers, it does come down to his decisions (Will he be persuaded to put a garden on the White House lawn?) for which we will have to wait just a few more days to see in action.