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For all those claiming the solution is as easy as "just moving out of the desert", people aren't the only major issue when it comes to the Colorado River's wate
by sehr 10y ago
For all those claiming the solution is as easy as "just moving out of the desert", people aren't the only major issue when it comes to the Colorado River's water.
So unless you're willing to forego vegetables every single winter, those farms in the southwestern desert (as backwards as it may seem) are there to stay until they're too expensive to maintain.
- douche 10y agoThere's whole sections of the country that were former agricultural bastions that have gone to seed. We don't need the central valley that badly - although you may not be getting fresh baby spinach in January, there will still be vegetables, and nobody is going to starve.
- sehr 10y agoI am specifically not talking about the Central Valley. The Central Valley is not a desert, nor is it irrigated using water from the Colorado river (AFAIK). Please research this topic before responding again. Edit: spinach? I'm also talking potatoes, carrots, lettuce, onions, broccoli and cauliflower. I wish we were only at risk of losing spinach.
- dragonwriter 10y ago> The Central Valley is not a desert, Quite a bit of the southern part of the San Joaquin Valley (which is the southern limb of the Central Valley, the Sacramento Valley is the northern limb) is, in fact, desert.
- sehr 10y agoOops! My mistake, I usually try to forget Bakersfield exists.
- douche 10y agoAll of these things can be grown elsewhere, where massive, intensive irrigation isn't a necessity. Potatoes, onions and carrots can be stored for many months after harvest, even without refrigeration, and cauliflower and broccoli hold up well to freezing. Lettuce is of very questionable nutritional value to begin with... but it can be grown with minimal effort and great productivity in greenhouses.
- dragonwriter 10y ago> All of these things can be grown elsewhere, where massive, intensive irrigation isn't a necessity. If they could without displacing some other more valuable crop, at lower total cost than what they have been with irrigation in the Central Valley, they already would be. Losing production in the Central Valley reduces overall supply and increases prices, whether it moves some production elsewhere (displacing existing land uses) or not.
- douche 10y agoIf artificially low water costs (not to mention widespread use of illegal, sub-market rate labor) are deflating the costs, then that impacts the calculus to some degree, would you agree?
- dragonwriter 10y agoNo, it doesn't change the fact that losing Central Valley production will reduce supply and increase consumer prices. To extent that either of the factors mentioned is an actual subsidy (the labor one doesn't seem to be -- nor is it necessarily a differentiator from alternative production areas -- but the water one might be), that may mean that the reduced public cost of the subsidy may to some extent offset the increased sticker price of the no-longer-subsidized goods
- the8472 10y agoWhy is such a large fraction of vegetables grown in a desert in the first place?
- dragonwriter 10y ago> Why is such a large fraction of vegetables grown in a desert in the first place? Because the soil and climate (but for, you know, the lack of rainfall) is otherwise fairly optimal for it, and it is easier to move water to the desert than soil and desirable aspects of climate to the not-desert.
- sehr 10y agoCorrect. The soil is incredibly fertile, and at least around the Yuma/imperial valley area, it's literally the sunniest place on earth.