Florencia is a trained researcher at the University of Chicago’s Harris School of Public Policy, activist, educator, and mother.
Her entry into water conservation began shortly after giving birth to my youngest child. I came across an article in the Los Angeles Times with tips to save water during the drought. “Take shorter showers,” the ad read, it inspired my idea to sell shower timers. “You can save 2500 gallons of water in one year if you shorten your long shower by 4 minutes,” I said to potential customers. I sold 80,000 shower timers. After I learned we each eat anywhere between 500-1300 gallons of water every day, I knew I was in the wrong room of the house.
The most far-reaching, effective place to save water is to eat less of it.
I live in Oxnard, California, an agricultural town on the Pacific coast that smells of celery, strawberries, and fertilizers with my husband and three children. The abundant farms drew my family to California from Mexico three generations ago. One set of grandparents followed the crops as migrant farm workers and never left; the other grandparents worked in a sugar beet factory that gave birth to my hometown.
I've been interviewed by NPR, American Public Media, KCRW’s Good Food, New York and Bay Area Pacifica Radio, Entertainment Weekly, CBS, and KTLA Morning News and several popular podcasts. I won the Creative Nonfiction Gift of Freedom Award from A Room of Her Own Foundation and was the recipient of the 2018 Environmental Hero Award from the Santa Barbara Community Environmental Council.
I am working to transition schools and parks from chemicals to organic landscaping in and around Oxnard, California, with funding awarded by Patagonia.
My upcoming books include How to Eat Less Water: A Guide to Save Water For the Planet From our Kitchens (working title) and Drops of Water, a children’s picture book that teaches the life-sustaining power of a single drop of water and why we must protect it.
There is power in the collective! It is the idea that gives me hope. We can influence food systems to grow and produce our food differently, but only if we merge our influence. Collectively we will rewrite the story of the future of water on this exquisite planet we call home.
Join me in the movement to eat less water NOW.
Be your own revolution,
Florencia
"This is an important book. The world of water is actually complicated and complex, perhaps even more so than food, but Ramirez drips below the surface to help us begin to understand the connection and to expand our consciousness so that we can be ever more mindful and grateful as we live each day."
-LARRY YEE, PRESIDENT, THE FOOD COMMONS
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