3 ms·

Just for perspective: There isn't any kind of issue where people aren't getting water to drink, but yes, growing almonds is fucking stupid in a drought ridden

by JPKab 11y ago

Just for perspective: There isn't any kind of issue where people aren't getting water to drink, but yes, growing almonds is fucking stupid in a drought ridden state.

1971genocide 11y ago
The thing is growing almond is okay if its to meet local demand. But growing it in a state that is experiencing drought and then shipping it halfway across a ocean is just way out of wack. Is there a lack of area with water in the rest of the world ?? Why cannot almonds be grown somewhere in the second largest continent of africa ? Its much closer to me than bloody California.
- kbenson 11y ago
  Because it's profitable? If the true cost of growing almonds was actually paid by the farmers (including water cost, which is the real problem, it doesn't really cost anything to the farmers compared to it's true cost to the surrounding area), they would cost more to buy, reducing demand, cost more to grow, reducing profit, and more than likely be grown in other areas. Farmers are just optimizing for a system with cost inputs where the cost of some inputs (water) are paid by others (CA residents, via ecological and water supply problems). The quicker we can shift this cost to the true user (farmers) the quicker the system will stabilize.
- bdcravens 11y ago
  Could you not say the same thing about programmers and San Francisco?
kbenson 11y ago
And like many things, it's due to misaligned incentives causing a cascade affect. The farmers aren't stupid, they are simply optimizing for a system where water has little to no cost and almonds (and pistachios, I hear) are extremely lucrative. Each farmer is making a sane decision for themselves to maximize their profit based on their capabilities, and to not do so at this point just means the same end result, but with less profit for that farmer and slightly more for their competitors. It's not really any different than the environment (pollution had no direct cost), except that a) consumers started caring, making a market for responsible treatment of the environment, and B) governments are starting to get involved, putting caps on pollution, trying to assess actual environmental affect, and in some cases making companies offset it (a market, yet again).
YZF 11y ago
It's also hurting bees and other parts of the ecosystem. Endless mono-culture all flowering at once. Local bees can't survive and they need to truck in bees to pollinate. A few months ago I was driving past an overturned truck (those trucks from the other article) full of bees. A month later it was a truck full of salmon but that's a different story...
thaumasiotes 11y ago
> growing almonds is fucking stupid in a drought ridden state. I've seen this sentiment a few times, and it's never made sense. Crop growth isn't determined solely by water availability. There's plenty of water in Florida, but the climate there is likely less almond-friendly than the California climate. In a toy world with just those two states, you'd have to pick your preference: climate control in Florida, or water importing in California. Saying they're both just something an idiot would try to do is giving up on the whole idea of growing almonds in particular and of comparative advantage generally. Maybe California's exceptional climate justifies doing a certain amount of work you wouldn't have to do to grow crops somewhere else. I've also seen two more sensible points about almonds and California water: - It's difficult to make property rights in water work, because two people drawing from two wells into the same aquifer both just lower the level of the aquifer everywhere. Off the top of my head, you'd need tradable allotments, like ocean fisheries, rather than property lines which I believe are what we currently use. - If you own a field and want to grow alfalfa (hugely water intensive), you can just let the field lie fallow if the price of water goes too high. You'll lose that year's alfalfa crop. But, if you own an almond orchard, you can't abandon it just because it'll cost more money to water it than you can make back selling the almonds -- if you don't water your orchard, all of the trees will die, and you won't own an almond orchard anymore. Since the California precipitation cycle is much longer than one year, it might be good policy to discourage crops that require maintenance on a yearly basis.
- mirimir 11y ago
  So why isn't there liability for damage caused by subsidence?
- hussong 11y ago
  Seems like a false dichotomy, you could also just have zero almonds and grow something else.
  - thaumasiotes 11y ago
    >> Saying they're both just something an idiot would try to do is giving up on the whole idea of growing almonds in particular
SilasX 11y ago
Actually, there kind of is. The drought has given restaurants intellectual "covering fire" for not bringing out passive-aggressively small cups for drinking water. I know, "minor inconvenience" and all, but it's pretty ridiculous that it's come to that, as if that somehow is at all noticeable for urban water consumption.

by JPKab 11y ago

Just for perspective: There isn't any kind of issue where people aren't getting water to drink, but yes, growing almonds is fucking stupid in a drought ridden state.

1971genocide 11y ago

The thing is growing almond is okay if its to meet local demand. But growing it in a state that is experiencing drought and then shipping it halfway across a ocean is just way out of wack. Is there a lack of area with water in the rest of the world ?? Why cannot almonds be grown somewhere in the second largest continent of africa ? Its much closer to me than bloody California.

kbenson 11y ago
Because it's profitable? If the true cost of growing almonds was actually paid by the farmers (including water cost, which is the real problem, it doesn't really cost anything to the farmers compared to it's true cost to the surrounding area), they would cost more to buy, reducing demand, cost more to grow, reducing profit, and more than likely be grown in other areas. Farmers are just optimizing for a system with cost inputs where the cost of some inputs (water) are paid by others (CA residents, via ecological and water supply problems). The quicker we can shift this cost to the true user (farmers) the quicker the system will stabilize.
bdcravens 11y ago
Could you not say the same thing about programmers and San Francisco?

kbenson 11y ago

And like many things, it's due to misaligned incentives causing a cascade affect. The farmers aren't stupid, they are simply optimizing for a system where water has little to no cost and almonds (and pistachios, I hear) are extremely lucrative. Each farmer is making a sane decision for themselves to maximize their profit based on their capabilities, and to not do so at this point just means the same end result, but with less profit for that farmer and slightly more for their competitors. It's not really any different than the environment (pollution had no direct cost), except that a) consumers started caring, making a market for responsible treatment of the environment, and B) governments are starting to get involved, putting caps on pollution, trying to assess actual environmental affect, and in some cases making companies offset it (a market, yet again).

YZF 11y ago

It's also hurting bees and other parts of the ecosystem. Endless mono-culture all flowering at once. Local bees can't survive and they need to truck in bees to pollinate. A few months ago I was driving past an overturned truck (those trucks from the other article) full of bees. A month later it was a truck full of salmon but that's a different story...

thaumasiotes 11y ago

> growing almonds is fucking stupid in a drought ridden state. I've seen this sentiment a few times, and it's never made sense. Crop growth isn't determined solely by water availability. There's plenty of water in Florida, but the climate there is likely less almond-friendly than the California climate. In a toy world with just those two states, you'd have to pick your preference: climate control in Florida, or water importing in California. Saying they're both just something an idiot would try to do is giving up on the whole idea of growing almonds in particular and of comparative advantage generally. Maybe California's exceptional climate justifies doing a certain amount of work you wouldn't have to do to grow crops somewhere else. I've also seen two more sensible points about almonds and California water: - It's difficult to make property rights in water work, because two people drawing from two wells into the same aquifer both just lower the level of the aquifer everywhere. Off the top of my head, you'd need tradable allotments, like ocean fisheries, rather than property lines which I believe are what we currently use. - If you own a field and want to grow alfalfa (hugely water intensive), you can just let the field lie fallow if the price of water goes too high. You'll lose that year's alfalfa crop. But, if you own an almond orchard, you can't abandon it just because it'll cost more money to water it than you can make back selling the almonds -- if you don't water your orchard, all of the trees will die, and you won't own an almond orchard anymore. Since the California precipitation cycle is much longer than one year, it might be good policy to discourage crops that require maintenance on a yearly basis.

mirimir 11y ago
So why isn't there liability for damage caused by subsidence?
hussong 11y ago
Seems like a false dichotomy, you could also just have zero almonds and grow something else.
- thaumasiotes 11y ago
  >> Saying they're both just something an idiot would try to do is giving up on the whole idea of growing almonds in particular

SilasX 11y ago

Actually, there kind of is. The drought has given restaurants intellectual "covering fire" for not bringing out passive-aggressively small cups for drinking water. I know, "minor inconvenience" and all, but it's pretty ridiculous that it's come to that, as if that somehow is at all noticeable for urban water consumption.