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If you're concerned about agricultural use of water in California, I would suggest a bigger concern is alfalfa, a low-value, water-intensive crop, most of which
by ScottBurson 8y ago
If you're concerned about agricultural use of water in California, I would suggest a bigger concern is alfalfa, a low-value, water-intensive crop, most of which gets shipped to China. We are almost literally selling water to China. Almonds, at least, are a high-value crop, meaning that if we found a way to circumvent or invalidate the 19th-century water rights and raise the price of water to farmers, almond growers could pay the higher rates but crops like alfalfa would probably be rendered uneconomic.
- Pharmakon 8y agoHigh value, low value, the Western U.S. can’t support either. The profitability of the situation isn’t really a factor, it’s the consumption. I’d also argue that people have far more control over what they buy for ‘milk’ than they do over exports to China. Having said that, it’s very much a problem solving itself, with eventual depopulation.
- greglindahl 8y agoDo you have a source for California alfalfa mostly being sent to China? Most places on the Internet say that it's mostly used to feed California dairy cows. And that alfalfa cultivation is changing to higher value crops over time, as farmers take advantage of the value of their water rights.