Market pricing would switch use of water to its highest value use. That is what is meant by “the invisible hand”. Australia currently has a system that monitors and charges for water usage and allows free trade in water rights. It has allowed Australia to survive a dozen year drought will very little economic displacement.
A lot of farms switched to growing corn and soybeans, or got absorbed by megafarms which converted them over, because there’s more profit to be had there. They’re no longer so concerned with crop rotation or growing what’s needed to cover the needs; it’s just a business.
This has been a problem in CA for decades, and the fact is that for many, many farmers, water is dirt cheap (pun intended). We still have crops being watered with sprinklers shooting water into the hot summer air because it’s cheaper to keep doing that then to convert to more conserving methods. This is not a new problem. I can remember going through the exact same discussions almost 30 years ago when we had the last drought. The exact same discussions.
Indeed. And then a couple of normal-ish wet(ter) winters show up to erase anyone’s urgency for the water situation. Everything goes back to normal, don’t worry - be happy, nothing to see here - move along…
, it’s going to a big ripple effect on the cost of food and people livelihood .
http://www.jainsusa.com/Ripple+Effect+of+California+Drought+I’m not unaware of of that. However, taking away subsidized ag water for California would essentially mean the end of the ag industry there. It survives only because of the “dirt cheap water” as someone already put it. If water were to go to competitive market value, it would be far too costly to produce the current crops.
So it’s not a matter of just removing subsidies and smugly letting the invisible hand jerk everyone off. It’s a matter of supporting or ending ag in California as it’s known.
Which simply won’t be a choice in a few more years. Subsidized or not, there won’t be any water in ag quantities. The price or market conditions will be irrelevant. That’s what’s known as “the invisible boot kicking you in the ass.”
Given the water shortage I don’t see that as a problem.
Then it should be asked whether agriculture *should *be a priority in California or not. There are 49 other states that also grow food.
Making farmers pay the true cost of water isn’t going to “end agriculture in California”. That’s nonsensical. It might mean the end of some kinds of extremely water-intensive crops in California, but there are all sorts of crops that are not water intensive. And there are ways to use less water while still producing the same crops. For example, you can spray water onto the fields which wastes a lot of water, or you can deliver water directly to the roots via drip irrigation. It’s not a simple equation of water in=value out.
If you’re getting lots and lots of cheap water, you dump that shit on your fields without worrying about conservation. If water is expensive, you conserve that water. If water is cheap you can grow low value crops that require lots of water. If water is expensive you can only grow crops that require lots of water if those crops are high value. Rice and alfalfa are examples of low value crops that require a lot of water that don’t make much sense to grow in California.
We don’t grow oranges in Kansas because those oranges would require expensive heated greenhouses. We don’t grow sugarcane in Arizona because Arizona doesn’t have the water for sugarcane. We don’t grow grapes in Louisiana because it’s too wet. We don’t grow apples in Hawaii because it’s too hot. Every agricultural region on planet has a certain amount of inputs of sunlight, temperature, water, soil, transportation infrastructure, and so on. And the crops that are grown or not grown depends on the cost of the inputs relative to the value of the agricultural products. There are millions of acres of taiga and desert and tundra and mountain and swamp that are unsuitable for agriculture because nothing can be grown there that can’t be grown more cheaply in other places. If we had to grow oranges in Kansas we’d build a bunch of greenhouses and pay $30 a pound for oranges. It can be done, it’s just that you can’t charge people $30 a pound for Kansas oranges when Florida oranges sell for $1.50 a pound.
The situation in California would be like if people came to Kansas and found a bunch of greenhouses already there, and started growing oranges. Hey, free greenhouse, why not? Except over time the greenhouses started to break down via normal wear and tear, and people started to panic. We need the taxpayers to build us new greenhouses, or it’s the end of agriculture in Kansas! Nevermind that to replace the greenhouses would cost billions, much more than the value of the Kansas orange crop. And nevermind that outside the greenhouses Kansas produces all sorts of valuable crops.
I went through many boxes of clementines from Israel this year. Just sayin.
I’ve lived in CA most my life. I’ve seen the droughts before, and I’ve seen so much rain that they are letting water out of the dams so they don’t overflow.
What pisses me off is how we’re billed for water. We pay for what we use, (fair enough) and the infrastructure, (fair enough) but then we pay for some sort of emergency condition where they have to buy water from other places. Then, in good times, we pay for storing water in some farmers lake - like he could do anything about it being there even if we weren’t using it. It’s not like he’s going to pay to have his lake drained every year after it fills up with water.
California has the entire ocean at its doorstep.
Israel has transformed the desert into farmland with desalination plants. California can do the same.
This is assuming the drought will continue. It’s not likely to.
Do you base this on science or the gambler’s fallacy? Because most models predict less rain in the coming decades. And as pointed out upthread, it’s really the snow pack that determines water supplies in CA, and elevated temperatures are decreasing that no matter how much precipitation falls.
Pass a resolution. That’s what y’all do, right?
In case anyone is interested in what these industries have to say, since they are in the cross-hairs of a lot of the comments in these California drought threads:
The Almond Board of California, and their PDF Water Fact Sheet.
The California Rice Commission (“The Environmental Crop”) has a Drought Info page, and imply that the water they use is mainly from unimproved sources - meaning they do not use water that comes out of a pipe.
The American Pistachio Growers seem less concerned about water issues on their page, altho if you dig around you will find a page on how the nuts are responsibly grown.
The California Walnut Board also has an attractive website, but not so much info on water issues, altho does a page on sustainability.
After reading through some of their websites, all I can think is “mmm, Pistachios!”.
If California cannot grow water-intensive crops anymore (rice, cotton,citrus), then perhaps they ought to consider hydroponic farming in greenhouses. The Israelis have been very successful with this-and it uses a fraction of the water used in conventional irrigation.
Would solar desalination plants make a contribution to solving this?
Wouldn’t that be REAL expensive, and what to do with all the salt removed. Haul it back out to the ocean I guess.
California isn’t an isolated land surrounded by hostile countries. (Although Oregonians do seem a bit testy at times … ) There’s plenty of trade in agricultural commodities with other states. We don’t need to go super-high-efficient to be self-supporting; just switch to crops that are less water intensive.
According to your article:
“California farmers supply the country with almost half the fruits and vegetables consumed. We learned last week 80% of the nations strawberries are grown in California and now learn 99 percent of artichokes, 99 percent of walnuts, 97 percent of kiwis, 97 percent of plums, 95 percent of celery, 95 percent of garlic, 89 percent of cauliflower, 71 percent of spinach, and 69 percent of carrots are grown in California. This is just the start of the list.”
Everyone of those items I’ve seen grown in other parts of the country. Our area used to be known as the “Spinach Capital”.
But its right where midwest farmers have pretty much switched to just corn, soybeans, and wheat. But trust me many farmers would like to switch out of that.