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> The biggest user of water here in Arizona are the commercial farmers. And farming has been booming in Arizona. I lived there about 10 years ago and even then

> The biggest user of water here in Arizona are the commercial farmers. And farming has been booming in Arizona. I lived there about 10 years ago and even then there were a lot of complaints about all the tree farms (almonds, etc.) that were showing up in Arizona. Massive water consumption and virtually impossible to be sustainable in the desert.

MengerSponge 5y ago
The irony is that with current incentives, it's a self-reinforcing cycle. Nuts have a huge return on investment, so nut farmers can afford to buy even very expensive water, so they plant more trees, etc etc.
- hosh 5y ago
  What’s also ironic is that people can grow nut trees in arid land at a smallholder scale. Folks in the permies.com forum talk about chucking nuts randomly, and the ones that survive to grow on their own are more drought-tolerant. If you are not trying to force greater yield in order to squeeze out profit, the nut trees can do well to yield enough for people to have their fair share. When done as part of a practice that involves diversifying crops, the entire smallhold is far more resilient to any number of external pressure, including climate, pests, market crashes, etc.
  - jkestner 5y ago
    Distributed nut farming is cool, and would solve my dilemma as a voracious nut eater. I cut out almonds for the amount of water they suck up in California, but probably every nut is problematic. Too bad resilience against future problems loses to maximizing profits, so all the resources are capital-efficiently extracted from one location before moving on. Even if I buy local, it’s likely that it’s farmed at a damaging scale. I’m guessing that sustainable farming, crop rotations, etc have fewer externalities.
- MagnumOpus 5y ago
  > nut farmers can afford to buy even very expensive water (x) doubt If they actually can pay for "very expensive water" i.e. water at the rates that residential/commercial users pay, then fair play to them. But from what I heard, they are only profitable by paying near-zero (orders of magnitudes less than other users).
  - xxpor 5y ago
    What's the rough residential rate in AZ? Here in Seattle (obviously a MUCH different situation wrt water availability) I pay $6.96 per CCF (748.052 US gal, 3400 L). Even if every tree used an entire CCF over a season, that'd still be trivial compared to the amount of nuts you'd get (I assume)
    - Jensson 5y ago
      California farmers use 40 trillion litres of water per year. At your rate that would be roughly 80 billion dollars a year or so. California's entire agriculture sector is worth around 50 billion a year dollars. So just the cost of water would be way more than all their earnings. And then you have to pay for equipment, pay for workers etc.
      - inglor_cz 5y ago
        I think their water privileges are not going away. After Covid and all the disruption of international trade, self-sufficiency in food production will be considered more important than before.
        plussed_reader 5y ago
        With privileges come responsibilities; like forgoing the profit motive for an activity that must be so heavily subsidized by gov't influence.
        rdsnsca 5y ago
        In a normal year 40 % of the food the US grows ends up in the garbage, Canada is even higher at 50 %.

MengerSponge 5y ago

The irony is that with current incentives, it's a self-reinforcing cycle. Nuts have a huge return on investment, so nut farmers can afford to buy even very expensive water, so they plant more trees, etc etc.

hosh 5y ago
What’s also ironic is that people can grow nut trees in arid land at a smallholder scale. Folks in the permies.com forum talk about chucking nuts randomly, and the ones that survive to grow on their own are more drought-tolerant. If you are not trying to force greater yield in order to squeeze out profit, the nut trees can do well to yield enough for people to have their fair share. When done as part of a practice that involves diversifying crops, the entire smallhold is far more resilient to any number of external pressure, including climate, pests, market crashes, etc.
- jkestner 5y ago
  Distributed nut farming is cool, and would solve my dilemma as a voracious nut eater. I cut out almonds for the amount of water they suck up in California, but probably every nut is problematic. Too bad resilience against future problems loses to maximizing profits, so all the resources are capital-efficiently extracted from one location before moving on. Even if I buy local, it’s likely that it’s farmed at a damaging scale. I’m guessing that sustainable farming, crop rotations, etc have fewer externalities.
MagnumOpus 5y ago
> nut farmers can afford to buy even very expensive water (x) doubt If they actually can pay for "very expensive water" i.e. water at the rates that residential/commercial users pay, then fair play to them. But from what I heard, they are only profitable by paying near-zero (orders of magnitudes less than other users).
- xxpor 5y ago
  What's the rough residential rate in AZ? Here in Seattle (obviously a MUCH different situation wrt water availability) I pay $6.96 per CCF (748.052 US gal, 3400 L). Even if every tree used an entire CCF over a season, that'd still be trivial compared to the amount of nuts you'd get (I assume)
  - Jensson 5y ago
    California farmers use 40 trillion litres of water per year. At your rate that would be roughly 80 billion dollars a year or so. California's entire agriculture sector is worth around 50 billion a year dollars. So just the cost of water would be way more than all their earnings. And then you have to pay for equipment, pay for workers etc.
    - inglor_cz 5y ago
      I think their water privileges are not going away. After Covid and all the disruption of international trade, self-sufficiency in food production will be considered more important than before.
      - plussed_reader 5y ago
        With privileges come responsibilities; like forgoing the profit motive for an activity that must be so heavily subsidized by gov't influence.
      - rdsnsca 5y ago
        In a normal year 40 % of the food the US grows ends up in the garbage, Canada is even higher at 50 %.