4 ms·

If you care about limiting agricultural water usage, the first target to go after is dairy and animal ag, not almonds. Almonds are on the high side compared to

by sparrc 5y ago

If you care about limiting agricultural water usage, the first target to go after is dairy and animal ag, not almonds. Almonds are on the high side compared to other plants but their water usage per calorie is much less than animal ag. Also consider that almonds flourish in the mediterranean type of climate that California has, whereas dairy and beef (and their feed crops) can be raised almost anywhere.

dragonwriter 5y ago
> Almonds are on the high side compared to other plants but their water usage per calorie is much less than animal ag. The world produces far more calories of food than is needed, so water impact per calorie is a dumb metric since calories aren't the critical figure of merit. What matters is water impact per $ of dependent economic activity.
- sparrc 5y ago
  In a strictly capitalist sense yes, but then by that argument we should just completely cut off all California farmers since they seem to make less money per water used when compared to California cities (I'm just stating your argument, which I would argue is "dumb" and overly simplistic way of looking at the world). You're missing the point that we are talking about regulating water usage external to the industry (in which people should and do care about water usage as it relates to sustainability of California as a whole), and water usage internal to the industry (in which an individual farmer cares about yields, efficiency, and economic value of crops). Internal to farming the entire reason we have so many almonds in CA is exactly because it's a high-efficiency and high-value crop. https://slate.com/business/2015/04/almonds-in-california-they-use-up-a-lot-of-water-but-they-deserve-a-place-in-californias-future.html https://slate.com/business/2015/04/almonds-in-california-the... "In a real sense, the almond industry is the future of California agriculture—high value, high efficiency, but still high consuming. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, as it makes most sense to use a scarce resource for the highest value application possible."
  - dragonwriter 5y ago
    > by that argument we should just completely cut off all California farmers since they seem to make less money per water used when compared to California cities Well, no, because I was positing a better metric for competing agricultural uses, not the one-true-metric for all uses and, also, because even if it was the one true metric for all uses, unless water was the limiting factor for urban economic production, while it kight imply all cuts needed fron current consumption should cone from ag, it wouldn't imply additional cuts to ag to increase urban alotment. And, while the reverse allocation of cuts would cut all urban use in a foreseeable shortfall (because its such a small share to start with) any shortfall that would require ebough cuts to equal all agricultural use would be a a cataclysmic disaster no matte how the cuts were apportioned (and most would cone from agriculture because, even after you stopped giving any to people—whom you need for agriculture, anyway—you’d barely have dented the necessary total cuts.
    - sparrc 5y ago
      okay, so you're arguing internal to farming. But then it's obviously being planted in huge numbers in modern times because it's a high-yield crop economically. Why else would farmers be planting it? Are you arguing that farmers are currently doing something that's against their economic best interests?

by sparrc 5y ago

dragonwriter 5y ago

> Almonds are on the high side compared to other plants but their water usage per calorie is much less than animal ag. The world produces far more calories of food than is needed, so water impact per calorie is a dumb metric since calories aren't the critical figure of merit. What matters is water impact per $ of dependent economic activity.

sparrc 5y ago
In a strictly capitalist sense yes, but then by that argument we should just completely cut off all California farmers since they seem to make less money per water used when compared to California cities (I'm just stating your argument, which I would argue is "dumb" and overly simplistic way of looking at the world). You're missing the point that we are talking about regulating water usage external to the industry (in which people should and do care about water usage as it relates to sustainability of California as a whole), and water usage internal to the industry (in which an individual farmer cares about yields, efficiency, and economic value of crops). Internal to farming the entire reason we have so many almonds in CA is exactly because it's a high-efficiency and high-value crop. https://slate.com/business/2015/04/almonds-in-california-they-use-up-a-lot-of-water-but-they-deserve-a-place-in-californias-future.html https://slate.com/business/2015/04/almonds-in-california-the... "In a real sense, the almond industry is the future of California agriculture—high value, high efficiency, but still high consuming. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, as it makes most sense to use a scarce resource for the highest value application possible."
- dragonwriter 5y ago
  > by that argument we should just completely cut off all California farmers since they seem to make less money per water used when compared to California cities Well, no, because I was positing a better metric for competing agricultural uses, not the one-true-metric for all uses and, also, because even if it was the one true metric for all uses, unless water was the limiting factor for urban economic production, while it kight imply all cuts needed fron current consumption should cone from ag, it wouldn't imply additional cuts to ag to increase urban alotment. And, while the reverse allocation of cuts would cut all urban use in a foreseeable shortfall (because its such a small share to start with) any shortfall that would require ebough cuts to equal all agricultural use would be a a cataclysmic disaster no matte how the cuts were apportioned (and most would cone from agriculture because, even after you stopped giving any to people—whom you need for agriculture, anyway—you’d barely have dented the necessary total cuts.
  - sparrc 5y ago
    okay, so you're arguing internal to farming. But then it's obviously being planted in huge numbers in modern times because it's a high-yield crop economically. Why else would farmers be planting it? Are you arguing that farmers are currently doing something that's against their economic best interests?