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> The total dollar volumes of some of the crops may surprise the first-time reader. Doing a quick search: 1. Dairy (milk and cream) $6.56B 2. Grapes $5

> The total dollar volumes of some of the crops may surprise the first-time reader. Doing a quick search: 1. Dairy (milk and cream) $6.56B 2. Grapes $5.79B 3. Almonds $5.60 4. Cannabis (legal sales) $3.1 5. Strawberries $3.1 6. Cattle and Calves $2.63 7. Lettuce $2.51 8. Walnuts $1.59 9. Tomatoes $1.05 10. Pistachios $1.01 * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agriculture_in_California https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agriculture_in_California However agriculture in general makes up less than 2% of GDP: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_California#Sectors https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_California#Sectors While using 39% of the water: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_in_California#Uses_of_water https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_in_California#Uses_of_wa... From a strictly utilitarian perspective, it may not be worth the effort to support agriculture. Or at the very least, if you're going to triage usage, it may have to be the first thing to be cut back on during dry spells.

Cuuugi 5y ago
Your argument doesn't factor in that people need to eat, and they well, are making food.
- mbrumlow 5y ago
  And they can get their food grown in a region that does not have a water issue.
  - panny 5y ago
    After referring to them as flyover states, they might be reluctant to send California any food.
    - mattnewton 5y ago
      I don't know much about farming, but I doubt farms that refuse to sell their crops stay farms for very long.
    - trav4225 5y ago
      Not to mention that official state travel to many of these states is banned...
  - spfzero 5y ago
    With the attendant increase in carbon emissions to transport it though.
- wwweston 5y ago
  Sure. And where food production is the policy concern, part of what you want would be incentives to produce high nutrition with water efficiency.
- kebman 5y ago
  Not a big problem. Can be imported from non-afflicted areas. Perhaps local shortages of certain products, but I doubt anyone will starve. It's pretty bad for the farmer in question, though, who will undoubtedly lose a lot of money.
- tdeck 5y ago
  The big issue here in CA is that farmers are growing water-intensive crops that offer a better return (like almonds), but they're growing them in the desert known as the central valley. That leads to water shortages. As someone living in California I certainly appreciate the huge variety of great produce that's available because of CA agriculture, but even the almond farmers know this isn't going to last forever. They're all in a race to drill deeper wells than their neighbor and make a quick buck before the aquifer runs out. At that point we'll have no reserve at all and the party will grind to a halt. The better idea would be to grow different crops here, not to stop agriculture altogether. That requires some kind of rationing.
  - sologoub 5y ago
    We really need to re-think our water sources in CA. We have nearly unlimited solar potential that can be used to power desalination and pumping of the water were we need it. Best part - we don’t need to worry about power storage (just transmission, which is not trivial, but can be done), it’s not an issue if we cannot desalinate at night.
    - tdeck 5y ago
      I was curious about the energy requirements, so I did some envelope math. The average US household consumes 11,000 KW-hours of energy per year. Let's say an average person uses 80-100 gallons of water a day, so a low end of about 30,000 gallons of water per year. One article [1] suggests desalination takes about 15kJ/kg water at the most efficient plants. That translates to 473 kilowatt hours of energy required per household each year: 30000 gallons * 3.79 kg/gallon * 15 kilojoules So that's about a 4% increase in household energy usage just for domestic water for one person (domestic is less than 10% of our water use in CA). I'm not sure what conclusion to draw from this, but I suspect that it isn't practical to use desalination as a primary source of water. I also expect that much salt would become an environmental problem to dispose of. Once we drain our aquifer, the water shortage will be really severe and we'll need to cut back on agriculture regardless of desalination, but it could help a lot in urban areas. [1]: http://www.desware.net/Energy-Requirements-Desalination-Processes.aspx#:~:text=Theoretically%2C%20about%200.86%20kWh%20of,the%20type%20of%20process%20used http://www.desware.net/Energy-Requirements-Desalination-Proc....
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
ineedasername 5y ago
From a strictly utilitarian perspective, it may not be worth the effort to support agriculture. That really depends on the economic impact of the other sources of water use, most of which, 50% of total use, is for "environmental" purposes that do not directly impact GDP in the same way as agriculture. [0] I'm not saying Environmental use is less important: I'm saying that a utilitarian GDP focused policy on water use is probably not the best metric to use: There's simply too little other water-reliant commerce in CA to use GDP as a yardstick here. That just leaves balancing 40% use by agriculture against 50% use for environmental purposes. [0] https://www.ppic.org/publication/water-use-in-california/ https://www.ppic.org/publication/water-use-in-california/
mlyle 5y ago
More like 80% of the water, because IMO the 50% of water use that is "environmental use" -- AKA not drying out all the rivers entirely-- isn't directly used by humans.
username90 5y ago
So they make around 1 dollar per 1000 gallons? People rationing their shower time as urged by authorities must be proud that they could save a farmer somewhere a cent or two.
- oceanghost 5y ago
  This is what burned during the last drought. I let everything in my yard die because we were only allowed to water 1 day a week. Thousands of dollars worth of landscaping died-- and for what as you say? So a farmer could make a little more money that year?
  - simfree 5y ago
    Sounds like the landscaping picked wasn't the right choice for the climate you reside in. Rain patterns and seasonal temperature have changed over the last 20 years, landscaping that made sense when I was a kid no longer works in many areas without daily watering.
    - oceanghost 5y ago
      So you're correct of course, but, ironically, I lived in a historical area which had strict rules about what could and could not be landscaped. I literally had the plants that were legal for me to have. Please find attached a story about the City of Orange suing its residents for landscaping with drought resistant plants. "Orange officials sue couple who removed their lawn By Amina Khan March 2, 2010 12 AM PT Some Southern California cities fine residents for watering their lawns too much during droughts. But in Orange, officials are locked in a legal battle with a couple accused of violating city ordinances for removing their lawn in an attempt to save water. The dispute began two years ago, when Quan and Angelina Ha tore out the grass in their frontyard. In drought-plagued Southern California, the couple said, the lush grass had been soaking up tens of thousands of gallons of water -- and hundreds of dollars -- each year." https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2010-mar-02-la-me-bad-lawn2-2010mar02-story.html https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2010-mar-02-la-me-ba...
i_am_proteus 5y ago
Be careful with this line of "utilitarian" thinking. Food production is not easily replaced. California produces 95% of tomatoes grown in the USA.[0] 18.5% of milk.[1] These volumes can't be readily replaced by other states' production. California is an agriculture powerhouse. Certainly luxury export crops like the oft-vilified almond might not be sorely missed, but staples like tomatoes, lettuces, dairy, and beef would be in shortage at sky-high prices without California's production. [0]https://downloads.usda.library.cornell.edu/usda-esmis/files/02870v86p/0r967m63g/sn00bf58x/vegean20.pdf https://downloads.usda.library.cornell.edu/usda-esmis/files/... [1]https://www.ers.usda.gov/webdocs/DataFiles/48685/milkcowsandprod.xlsx?v=1810.1 https://www.ers.usda.gov/webdocs/DataFiles/48685/milkcowsand...
- throw0101a 5y ago
  > California produces 95% of tomatoes grown in the USA.[0] 18.5% of milk.[1] The US overproduces milk from what I've read. Reducing some output may actually be a good thing: * https://wisconsinexaminer.com/2019/07/29/milk-too-much-of-a-good-thing/ https://wisconsinexaminer.com/2019/07/29/milk-too-much-of-a-... More generally, perhaps measuring dollar-of-GDP-per-gallon-of-water or some such may be of some use to prioritize which crops should be discouraged may be worth examining.
  - i_am_proteus 5y ago
    That's an opinion piece you linked there. I'll reiterate that dollars are not a good way to measure the value to society of agricultural products, especially necessary vegetables like tomatoes. How do you measure the second- and third-order effects of the population having access to an affordable nutritious diet?
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
  - YokoZar 5y ago
    > More generally, perhaps measuring dollar-of-GDP-per-gallon-of-water or some such may be of some use to prioritize which crops should be discouraged may be worth examining. The normal way to "measure" and "discourage" such inefficient things is by prices. However, the price of California water is inordinately cheap so long as you are dumping it on the ground in the desert.
glennvtx 5y ago
Denying large swaths of agriculture just so that you can grow a yard, or take a long shower, is the kind of stupidity that has landed California where it is in the first place.

Cuuugi 5y ago

Your argument doesn't factor in that people need to eat, and they well, are making food.

mbrumlow 5y ago
And they can get their food grown in a region that does not have a water issue.
- panny 5y ago
  After referring to them as flyover states, they might be reluctant to send California any food.
  - mattnewton 5y ago
    I don't know much about farming, but I doubt farms that refuse to sell their crops stay farms for very long.
  - trav4225 5y ago
    Not to mention that official state travel to many of these states is banned...
- spfzero 5y ago
  With the attendant increase in carbon emissions to transport it though.
wwweston 5y ago
Sure. And where food production is the policy concern, part of what you want would be incentives to produce high nutrition with water efficiency.
kebman 5y ago
Not a big problem. Can be imported from non-afflicted areas. Perhaps local shortages of certain products, but I doubt anyone will starve. It's pretty bad for the farmer in question, though, who will undoubtedly lose a lot of money.
tdeck 5y ago
The big issue here in CA is that farmers are growing water-intensive crops that offer a better return (like almonds), but they're growing them in the desert known as the central valley. That leads to water shortages. As someone living in California I certainly appreciate the huge variety of great produce that's available because of CA agriculture, but even the almond farmers know this isn't going to last forever. They're all in a race to drill deeper wells than their neighbor and make a quick buck before the aquifer runs out. At that point we'll have no reserve at all and the party will grind to a halt. The better idea would be to grow different crops here, not to stop agriculture altogether. That requires some kind of rationing.
- sologoub 5y ago
  We really need to re-think our water sources in CA. We have nearly unlimited solar potential that can be used to power desalination and pumping of the water were we need it. Best part - we don’t need to worry about power storage (just transmission, which is not trivial, but can be done), it’s not an issue if we cannot desalinate at night.
  - tdeck 5y ago
    I was curious about the energy requirements, so I did some envelope math. The average US household consumes 11,000 KW-hours of energy per year. Let's say an average person uses 80-100 gallons of water a day, so a low end of about 30,000 gallons of water per year. One article [1] suggests desalination takes about 15kJ/kg water at the most efficient plants. That translates to 473 kilowatt hours of energy required per household each year: 30000 gallons * 3.79 kg/gallon * 15 kilojoules So that's about a 4% increase in household energy usage just for domestic water for one person (domestic is less than 10% of our water use in CA). I'm not sure what conclusion to draw from this, but I suspect that it isn't practical to use desalination as a primary source of water. I also expect that much salt would become an environmental problem to dispose of. Once we drain our aquifer, the water shortage will be really severe and we'll need to cut back on agriculture regardless of desalination, but it could help a lot in urban areas. [1]: http://www.desware.net/Energy-Requirements-Desalination-Processes.aspx#:~:text=Theoretically%2C%20about%200.86%20kWh%20of,the%20type%20of%20process%20used http://www.desware.net/Energy-Requirements-Desalination-Proc....
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

ineedasername 5y ago

From a strictly utilitarian perspective, it may not be worth the effort to support agriculture. That really depends on the economic impact of the other sources of water use, most of which, 50% of total use, is for "environmental" purposes that do not directly impact GDP in the same way as agriculture. [0] I'm not saying Environmental use is less important: I'm saying that a utilitarian GDP focused policy on water use is probably not the best metric to use: There's simply too little other water-reliant commerce in CA to use GDP as a yardstick here. That just leaves balancing 40% use by agriculture against 50% use for environmental purposes. [0] https://www.ppic.org/publication/water-use-in-california/ https://www.ppic.org/publication/water-use-in-california/

mlyle 5y ago

More like 80% of the water, because IMO the 50% of water use that is "environmental use" -- AKA not drying out all the rivers entirely-- isn't directly used by humans.

username90 5y ago

So they make around 1 dollar per 1000 gallons? People rationing their shower time as urged by authorities must be proud that they could save a farmer somewhere a cent or two.

oceanghost 5y ago
This is what burned during the last drought. I let everything in my yard die because we were only allowed to water 1 day a week. Thousands of dollars worth of landscaping died-- and for what as you say? So a farmer could make a little more money that year?
- simfree 5y ago
  Sounds like the landscaping picked wasn't the right choice for the climate you reside in. Rain patterns and seasonal temperature have changed over the last 20 years, landscaping that made sense when I was a kid no longer works in many areas without daily watering.
  - oceanghost 5y ago
    So you're correct of course, but, ironically, I lived in a historical area which had strict rules about what could and could not be landscaped. I literally had the plants that were legal for me to have. Please find attached a story about the City of Orange suing its residents for landscaping with drought resistant plants. "Orange officials sue couple who removed their lawn By Amina Khan March 2, 2010 12 AM PT Some Southern California cities fine residents for watering their lawns too much during droughts. But in Orange, officials are locked in a legal battle with a couple accused of violating city ordinances for removing their lawn in an attempt to save water. The dispute began two years ago, when Quan and Angelina Ha tore out the grass in their frontyard. In drought-plagued Southern California, the couple said, the lush grass had been soaking up tens of thousands of gallons of water -- and hundreds of dollars -- each year." https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2010-mar-02-la-me-bad-lawn2-2010mar02-story.html https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2010-mar-02-la-me-ba...

i_am_proteus 5y ago

Be careful with this line of "utilitarian" thinking. Food production is not easily replaced. California produces 95% of tomatoes grown in the USA.[0] 18.5% of milk.[1] These volumes can't be readily replaced by other states' production. California is an agriculture powerhouse. Certainly luxury export crops like the oft-vilified almond might not be sorely missed, but staples like tomatoes, lettuces, dairy, and beef would be in shortage at sky-high prices without California's production. [0]https://downloads.usda.library.cornell.edu/usda-esmis/files/02870v86p/0r967m63g/sn00bf58x/vegean20.pdf https://downloads.usda.library.cornell.edu/usda-esmis/files/... [1]https://www.ers.usda.gov/webdocs/DataFiles/48685/milkcowsandprod.xlsx?v=1810.1 https://www.ers.usda.gov/webdocs/DataFiles/48685/milkcowsand...

throw0101a 5y ago
> California produces 95% of tomatoes grown in the USA.[0] 18.5% of milk.[1] The US overproduces milk from what I've read. Reducing some output may actually be a good thing: * https://wisconsinexaminer.com/2019/07/29/milk-too-much-of-a-good-thing/ https://wisconsinexaminer.com/2019/07/29/milk-too-much-of-a-... More generally, perhaps measuring dollar-of-GDP-per-gallon-of-water or some such may be of some use to prioritize which crops should be discouraged may be worth examining.
- i_am_proteus 5y ago
  That's an opinion piece you linked there. I'll reiterate that dollars are not a good way to measure the value to society of agricultural products, especially necessary vegetables like tomatoes. How do you measure the second- and third-order effects of the population having access to an affordable nutritious diet?
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
- YokoZar 5y ago
  > More generally, perhaps measuring dollar-of-GDP-per-gallon-of-water or some such may be of some use to prioritize which crops should be discouraged may be worth examining. The normal way to "measure" and "discourage" such inefficient things is by prices. However, the price of California water is inordinately cheap so long as you are dumping it on the ground in the desert.

glennvtx 5y ago

Denying large swaths of agriculture just so that you can grow a yard, or take a long shower, is the kind of stupidity that has landed California where it is in the first place.