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A local groundwater management agency in Ventura County, CA recently started a pilot program that established a groundwater market among farmers in the county.
by 40acres 7y ago
A local groundwater management agency in Ventura County, CA recently started a pilot program that established a groundwater market among farmers in the county.
Following the early 2010s drought in California, laws were enacted to cap and eventually reduce the amount of groundwater that can be extracted. Recent advancements in water usage tracking infrastructure, combined with the law has led to a natural environment to create a cap and trade system.
Interestingly, farmers view water usage as a trade secret, and so the pilot marketplace is using block-chain to provide an anonymous marketplace. Groundwater management in California (and I assume across the nation) is regulated by a patchwork of different local government agencies and laws, but there is an awesome opportunity to provide a unified software based marketplace to establish a groundwater commodity market.
A market also facilities conservation as farmers now have incentive to lower their water usage and sell excess water on the market. A big challenge however is transportation of water across vast distances.
- heavenlyblue 7y agoWhat does it use _“block-chain”_ for?
- streb-lo 7y agohype
- mikepurvis 7y agoAnonymity, presumably. That said, you'd think there would be no reason that whatever real-world authority is ensuring no one extracts more than their purchased credits allow would already have all the secret information and could just be the clearing house for the transactions.
- heavenlyblue 7y agoTruly, one would think you’d still need an authority to connect the water supply usage to the blockchain per se.
- blaser-waffle 7y agoFarmers are on large plots, and there is only so much watertable. Why do they need to be anonymous? Sounds like more blockchain hype + the hidden potential for Nestle or whoever to buy up all the water rights discretely. Utilities should not be anonymous.
- scribu 7y ago> Interestingly, farmers view water usage as a trade secret I wonder why. Do slight changes in irrigation patterns have a significant effect on crops?
- TheHegemon 7y agoDefinitely! If someone is able to figure out how to use less water to grow the same amount of crops they could totally outcompete and undercut other producers. There's an interesting Planet Money episode about it: https://www.npr.org/2019/06/12/732147345/the-water-marketplace https://www.npr.org/2019/06/12/732147345/the-water-marketpla...
- lightedman 7y ago>If someone is able to figure out how to use less water to grow the same amount of crops We've already had that for years. Farmers don't want to make the structural investments required to get there. Water for farming needs to become prohibitively expensive for them to even consider moving away from their wasteful large fields. Tax the hell out of the land, too. What takes an acre of land and 100,000 gallons of water (a crop of wheat grass) can be done in a building 1/8 of an acre, 90% lower water requirements if not more, and produce 6x more than what the open plot of land does, on a yearly basis, on average. I did and proved that almost a decade ago. Looks like nobody still wants to listen.
- mentat 7y agoWater usage combined with weather information likely gives competitive advantage is futures markets.