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California-Grown Coffee Is Becoming the State's Next Gold Mine
- phil21 9y agoWhy is California so fascinated on agriculture which is extremely water intensive? Coffee is up there with Almonds as far as I understand the situation.
- starpilot 9y agoBecause it is profitable in California, with arable land and sunshine, to a degree not found in other states.
- pkaye 9y agoThe better question is why are more states not so fascinated with agriculture?
- dominotw 9y agoAvailability of cheap agricultural labor?
- dominotw 9y agohttps://www.cnbc.com/2018/02/22/california-agriculture-sees-wave-of-immigration-audits.html https://www.cnbc.com/2018/02/22/california-agriculture-sees-...
- maxerickson 9y agoIt pretty much comes down to weather. Importing water is easier than importing sun and heat.
- IntronExon 9y ago...until said water runs out, then you’re hot, sunny, and dry.
- skybrian 9y agoBut who knows, that might change: https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2017/11/8/16611710/vertical-farms https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2017/11/8/1661171...
- lerie82 9y agoI think the much better question is why are only 2 U.S. states allowed to grow coffee?
- wizardforhire 9y agoClimate is the big one, land and access to water (I know this seems weird for California but they do have it). You could grow in West TX, southern NM and AZ but the water logistics are not there. You see the same crops in FL, but they have less land to support the same kind of agriculture infrastructure as they do in California. The labor situation is a symptom of the above factors, by its very nature its mobile. If you had the farms to support it, the labor would follow.
- walshemj 9y agoLarge famers lobbying groups.
- jayess 9y agoLack of market forces.
- pkulak 9y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons
- IntronExon 9y agoThis comes up a lot here, but in theory a government is supposed to make hard decisions to prevent that tragedy. On its own simply saying “tragedy of the commons” is like a trauma surgeon saying, “sucking chest wound,” without stepping in to fix it.
- yongjik 9y agoI think it's more like the surgeon is being held back by people saying "No, don't step in because you'll make it worse! The human body can heal itself." And you, the surgeon, can do nothing but mutter "a punctured lung ain't gonna heal itself."
- IntronExon 9y agoA good surgeon should step in and accept the consequences, while saving a life; that is ultimately what they signed up for. No one said it would be easy or make you happy to do good, right? Still, I’m not ignoring your point, which is solid.
- jseliger 9y agoPeople and especially agricultural users don't pay anything like the true cost of water: http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2015/03/the-california-water-shortage-again.html http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2015/03/the.... Charge everyone the same cost per liter or gallon or 1,000 gallons and you will find out what should actually be grown.
- notatoad 9y ago> you will find out what should actually be grown. the problem with that is "what should actually be grown" has different answers depending on whether you value profit or feeding people.
- draw_down 9y agoRight. The word “should” is doing a lot of work in that sentence.
- swsieber 9y agoIn this case though the high water items are not what feed people well - almonds and coffee?
- YokoZar 9y agoIn this case, we aren't feeding people. We're feeding cows. We're also running into frequent water crises where politicians ask people to shower less while we dump 90% of the state's water on the ground.
- devmunchies 9y agoExactly. You want to decrease the water usage inefficiencies up the chain. The govt should advocate eating less animal products (I'm not necessarily saying all) if it really cared about conservation.
- fmihaila 9y ago> the problem with that is "what should actually be grown" has different answers depending on whether you value profit or feeding people. It can only be a choice between making a profit and feeding people at break-even (feeding people while losing money is not sustainable). Beyond that, the profit signal carries useful information about what the people being fed would rather eat, while keeping in line with what is economically and environmentally viable. The problem with the current situation is that water is mispriced, and mispricing, regardless of whether it favours suppliers or consumers, makes it unsustainable in the long run.
- gregw134 9y agoPeople don't ever talk about this, but we still grow rice in California. To grow rice you have to flood a field in several inches of water.
- Qwertious 9y agoSounds like rice should be grown aquaponically or hydroponically or not at all.
- narrator 9y agoThe Sierra provide ample water and silt for the central valley that makes it one of the worlds ideal farming lands. It's been very actively farmed for more than 100 years. Sure, the water situation has gone up and down with the drought, but normally there's plenty of water. A lot of the almond orchards had to be scaled back during the drought, but when there's water they use it. It's a lot more sustainable than many other farming lands because it's not dependent on an underground aquifer that took eons to fill up or water piped in from somewhere far away except for the urban areas of course.
- skybrian 9y agoOh come on, that's a weird definition of "ample", considering the frequent droughts and that water rights have always been a huge source of dispute in the western U.S. The question is whether there's enough water for both farming and huge cities. Cities can pay much more, so if water rights were transferrable, farmers wouldn't grow almonds. They would sell their water to cities and retire.
- lostlogin 9y agoIs it a drought or is the baseline taken from an unusually wet period?
- dgacmu 9y agoI wish this was true, but it's not: https://ca.water.usgs.gov/projects/central-valley/land-subsidence-san-joaquin-valley.html https://ca.water.usgs.gov/projects/central-valley/land-subsi... The land in parts of the central valley has subsided by meters due to long-term groundwater depletion.
- ghshephard 9y agoAccording to http://waterfootprint.org/media/downloads/Report14.pdf http://waterfootprint.org/media/downloads/Report14.pdf it requires 140 liters of water to produce 1 cup of coffee. The most expensive source of water that I can think of, from a reverse-osmosis desalinization plant, costs $0.40/1000 liters in Singapore (Hyflux, 20 year contract), - so that cup of coffee has a ceiling of about $0.08/to produce in terms of the cost of it's water content. The question should never be "how much water to produce this" - but, "what value are we getting from the water" - if you are able to sell a cup of coffee for $5, then it's probably a good investment of that $0.08.
- gradys 9y agoThis depends on water being well-priced in California (i.e. not subsidized, reflective of opportunity costs and externalities). I don't know much about water in CA, but is this the case?
- anubisresources 9y agoCalifornia has a very strange water system. It’s not really privatized, only ~5% of California’s water is provided by private parties last I checked. Californian water rights promise significantly more water than the state actually has (which will cause some problems). The water districts and utilities do most of the price setting, as I understand it. The water districts are largely controlled by farming interests who do not want pricy water. This info may be out of date, since I work in a very different water market (East Africa), so if someone knows better please correct me.
- skybrian 9y agoDefinitely not and it would probably put most agriculture in California out of business. Farmers can't compete with cities on price. https://www.economist.com/news/united-states/21647994-why-golden-state-so-bad-managing-water-price-wrong https://www.economist.com/news/united-states/21647994-why-go...
- loverofthings 9y ago
- sidibe 9y agoYou can grow pretty much anything in California. Soil is great, perfect weather for a wide variety of crops, and the dryness actually helps with pests and disease if you have another source of water.
- lostlogin 9y agoThat’s a hell of an ‘if’. The other stuff is surely easier to get than water is?
- FLUX-YOU 9y ago>Why is California so fascinated on agriculture which is extremely water intensive? Coffee is up there with Almonds as far as I understand the situation. Check the Netflix documentary "Water & Power", it gives a good reason to consider why. Essentially, people trying to control the water.
- booleandilemma 9y agoYour comment got me wondering if cactus juice is a thing, and apparently, it is.
- lostlogin 9y agoCall it cactus milk and then it’ll sell.
- almostApatriot1 9y agoCalifornia has a lot of ag industry and they are interested in making as much money as possible. California doesn't have a collective consciousness.
- TaylorGood 9y agoHere’s a fascinating long form on CA water, Ag and the largest almond and pistachio land owner in California with 180,000 acres.
- credit_guy 9y agoThe more water a plant takes, the more CO2 it scrubs from the air, right? That's not entirely bad, I would think.
- xyzzyz 9y agoNo, that is not how it works. CO2 is only removed from atmosphere if it is sequestered in some solid, like wood — CO2 is not deleted by plants, it’s just transformed to different form. Additionally, plants aren’t really sequestering CO2 from human emissions, unless you bury them underground as you grow them — if you only let it grow without storing it underground, you are only replacing CO2 from deforestation.
- credit_guy 9y agoI know this, but still, I think temporary CO2 removal from the atmosphere is not totally worthless. It buys us more time until more clean energy comes online. And if this time is paid for by rich coffee aficionados, I think that's not a bad deal after all. Oh, and I doubt there's any deforestation going on in California.
- xyzzyz 9y agoToday? Probably not much. Historically? Yes, a lot. You still need to offset for that first, even if happened 150 years ago.
- mrob 9y agoThe majority of the water a plant absorbs is lost to the air as transpiration. Different plants lose different percentages of water this way, so high water use doesn't necessarily mean more CO2 absorption. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transpiration https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transpiration
- pzone 9y agoThe logic here is slightly backwards. The reason there's a water crisis in California is because it's a fantastic place to grow things.
- jdhn 9y ago>A single cup sold for $18. The coffee sold out within two weeks. This is mindboggling to me. I don't think I've ever paid more than $5 for a cup of coffee.
- Canadauni 9y ago> Relative to all of the other things we're willing to spend $18 on — like a glass of wine or small-batch bourbon — investing in the memorable flavor experience of a great cup of coffee is worth it. This quote further in the article captures the reason why someone might spend more. Producing good coffee is actually more expensive than the market would lead you to believe. For some people drinking good coffee is exactly like experiencing a fine wine.
- noir_lord 9y agoI still wouldn't pay $18 but I'm sure some would. That said the best coffee near me is in the little market and it's both cheaper and vastly better than star bucks, I go there after Chess Club on a Saturday and review the games I just played, it's so good I would pay £5 (~$7.5) for that one cup a week because it's an experience not the caffeine, the rest of the time it's LIDL's Columbian instant (which is a damn fine instant).
- IntronExon 9y agoGiven what I’ve learned about fraud in the wine world, the nature of individual taste perception, and the inflated value of wine... I’m sure it is entirely similar. Useful references: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wine_fraud https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wine_fraud
- briandear 9y agoThink wine is bad .. wait until you look at the olive oil business!
- IntronExon 9y ago
- dang 9y agoThere was a coffee-in-California discussion last year at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14436704 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14436704.
- inamberclad 9y agoSo, what does it taste like?
- scruple 9y agoI didn't like it. It lacked any sort of body or coffee taste. It had a taste as if it was the lightest blonde roast that I'd ever had, but it was supposed to be a medium roast, IIRC. And I love light roasts; My go-to daily consumption is a blonde roast from a local roaster. I couldn't tell you exactly when I had it, I left Santa Barbara a few years ago.
- Canadauni 9y agoIt is possible that it was poorly made. Light roasts are fully capable to meet or exceed the body or "strength" of a dark roast. That being said it was probably the coffee not having the most optimal growing conditions leading to an empty tasting cup.
- petecox 9y agoIt's a relatively new market so its possible flavours will evolve as farmers and roasters mature their experiences with the product. And I would expect the price to level out once the novelty of sampling it has passed. But yes, living in the self-appointed 'coffee-snob' capital of the southern hemisphere, I do notice that fancy single origin roasts that dazzle the experts often leave the average man in the street underwhelmed "It's nice, but..."
- lostlogin 9y agoCan I ask where you are? I’d nominate Wellington as somewhere like that - and by my reckoning it is damn good.
- petecox 9y agoMelbourne - I am bemused at hearing a tourism spiel about our "historic" lanes overflowing with coffee shops, as if it were somehow unique. We do have per km^2 more tattooed millennials honing their barista skills than most, I guess.
- reillyse 9y agoSo stupid. 250 pounds of beans were harvested. That is less than 2 (150lb) bags of coffee. This is pure novelty. Just because someone can get a coffee plant to grow coffee in California does not mean the coffee will be any good. Coffee grows in a lot of places, really good coffee takes particular terroir to grow really well. E.g. low grown coffee generally doesn't taste very good and altitude alone isn't the answer. The combination between altitude, soil, climate(cold at night, hot in the day) makes the bean develop slowly and generates more flavour. This is not speculation, this is information that coffee agronomists understand. So, it's totally ok for somebody to sell expensive coffee as a novelty. What is disappointing about this article is it extrapolates from a sale of 250 lbs of beans to a "Gold Mine", implying that other beans grown in California might be sold at a similar price. They won't be, because they will likely be very poor quality. With the extremely high costs of production of the coffee, it likely won't be profitable except as a novelty.
- ACow_Adonis 9y agoI admit, I didn't read the article, but that's primarily because upon seeing it my first thought was exactly along the lines of yours: "wait, how can that be true, California doesn't have the climate/conditions to grow good arabica coffee. Is this going to be some robusta nightmare?". And it's not even just water, but temperature, soil, the whole works. Glad to see my intuition seems to be on target...
- adadad3442 9y agoYou didn't read the article carefully enough- the 250 lbs refers to the output of one specific harvester, not the output from all 30k coffee trees in CA.
- Retric 9y agoI great conditions a coffee tree produces an annual yield of 1 to 1 1/2 pounds of roasted coffee. So we are only talking about ~250 bags of coffee. Which is still nothing.
- reillyse 9y agoNope. “Last year, the 24-member coffee cooperative harvested 250 pounds of beans.“ So 24 farmers harvested 250 lbs, all of it bought by the one roaster at $60 /lb. Coffee plants take 18 months before they start producing harvestable amounts of cherry.
- justonepost 9y agoWhat’s truly sad about this is the misappropriation of resources. Why not donate the money to an efficient charity instead? I wish there was an onerous tax on this nonsense. This is exactly why high VAT + tax credits to the poor is the way we should generate our tax base.
- SQL2219 9y agoNumber of the Day: 18 Coffee Trees per Person https://www.treehugger.com/green-food/number-of-the-day-18-coffee-trees-per-person.html https://www.treehugger.com/green-food/number-of-the-day-18-c...
- bsg75 9y ago> Ruskey visited four different Blue Bottle cafes before finding a location where California coffee was still available. The article never said how good the coffee was? That’s an important point in this context.
- dis-sys 9y agoSeriously? I use a long list of US products on daily basis, most of them are really good. That being said, American coffee is the only big no go I can think of. People need to wake up from their day dream and realise something simple and plain - many travel to the US with instant coffee packed in their luggage because American coffee (made or grown in the US) is just !@#$%^.