3 ms·

We Drained California Dry

11 points by jelliclesfarm 5y ago

jelliclesfarm 5y ago
I now believe that the downsizing of CA Ag is the best thing to do for our desert state. The policies and politics are absolutely nuts and all for a mere less than 50 billion dollars we get from selling lettuce and strawberries(can be grown indoors/vertical farms) to the rest of usa and almonds to most of the world. in other words, we are exporting water at wholesale rates while creating no new tech or well paying jobs(most farm labour constitutes minimum wage paid illegal immigrants) for california during one more of our continual never ending drought cycle. the ag economy is about 350 billion. why? why are we clinging on to this dubious badge of honour? the ag emperor of usa is not wearing clothes. what is the value of this expensive ag sector that still lags behind tech wise to the rest of the world.(The Dutch otoh..despite their own problems/issues..have been successful in selling tech to other countries..rabobank has done excellent job with WUR bringing saline ag to africa and bangladesh/indonesia as well as cutting edge indoor ag tech to china) we are probably better off being self sustaining and converting most of the existing farmland into open spaces or carbon sinks. we need water. water will soon become the most precious commidity. we are not doing anything for our water security. i am not even touching the fossil fuel based production system and how we have poisoned our soil and the watershed. the costs for all of this is reverted back to the ca taxpayers but the benefits are sold at wholesale rates worldwide. what kind of dumbass economics is this? there is another mandatory water restriction(15%) and residential water rates are continuing to sky rocket with these mandates. it makes no sense especially when we continue to insist on building more homes for jobs and people who cost more than they contribute to the state's GDP. our population is 40 million. the math doesnt make any sense at all. the only numbers that makes sense is that the current regime is cultivating and paying a vote bank to keep them in power. often with tax monies collected from a highly paid tech sector immigrant population who bears the most burden and often cant even vote because they are taxed highly, but are almost always at the end of the immigration queue. no other rationalisation for ca's idiotic politics makes sense.
- hindsightbias 5y ago
  The Federal Govt controls immigration policy.
jelliclesfarm 5y ago
also..lets not forget east coast ivy league shennanigans of Harvard university endowments that spun off an investment arm that bought hundreds of millions of dollars of vineyards in paso robles areas..but what they really bought was water rights. the counties on one side which had family farms growing local food are under water usage moratoriums and mandatory water rationing while we divert that water to grow grapes for wine. https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2019/3/6/hmc-vineyard-environmental-review/ https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2019/3/6/hmc-vineyard-env... : dated but not much has changed for the farmers there.
vr46 5y ago
This is a tad late to acknowledge. I was casually pursuing a story on the world water crisis in 2009/10 and there was already a massive load of literature on the subject, including much on California and Colorado, with Peter Gleick already quite the expert on the issues, so I felt I was a decade late addressing it. Turned out to be too hard to photograph at the time (without lots of budget) but it was endlessly fascinating weaving my way across North and Central America looking at the warnings, the cleanups, the aftermaths of disasters and noting that the legal frameworks of the time basically encouraged and incentivized the root causes. America has the worst regulations and protections I've seen across any advanced nation, Australia comes close though.

11 points by jelliclesfarm 5y ago

I now believe that the downsizing of CA Ag is the best thing to do for our desert state. The policies and politics are absolutely nuts and all for a mere less than 50 billion dollars we get from selling lettuce and strawberries(can be grown indoors/vertical farms) to the rest of usa and almonds to most of the world. in other words, we are exporting water at wholesale rates while creating no new tech or well paying jobs(most farm labour constitutes minimum wage paid illegal immigrants) for california during one more of our continual never ending drought cycle. the ag economy is about 350 billion. why? why are we clinging on to this dubious badge of honour? the ag emperor of usa is not wearing clothes. what is the value of this expensive ag sector that still lags behind tech wise to the rest of the world.(The Dutch otoh..despite their own problems/issues..have been successful in selling tech to other countries..rabobank has done excellent job with WUR bringing saline ag to africa and bangladesh/indonesia as well as cutting edge indoor ag tech to china) we are probably better off being self sustaining and converting most of the existing farmland into open spaces or carbon sinks. we need water. water will soon become the most precious commidity. we are not doing anything for our water security. i am not even touching the fossil fuel based production system and how we have poisoned our soil and the watershed. the costs for all of this is reverted back to the ca taxpayers but the benefits are sold at wholesale rates worldwide. what kind of dumbass economics is this? there is another mandatory water restriction(15%) and residential water rates are continuing to sky rocket with these mandates. it makes no sense especially when we continue to insist on building more homes for jobs and people who cost more than they contribute to the state's GDP. our population is 40 million. the math doesnt make any sense at all. the only numbers that makes sense is that the current regime is cultivating and paying a vote bank to keep them in power. often with tax monies collected from a highly paid tech sector immigrant population who bears the most burden and often cant even vote because they are taxed highly, but are almost always at the end of the immigration queue. no other rationalisation for ca's idiotic politics makes sense.

hindsightbias 5y ago
The Federal Govt controls immigration policy.

jelliclesfarm 5y ago

also..lets not forget east coast ivy league shennanigans of Harvard university endowments that spun off an investment arm that bought hundreds of millions of dollars of vineyards in paso robles areas..but what they really bought was water rights. the counties on one side which had family farms growing local food are under water usage moratoriums and mandatory water rationing while we divert that water to grow grapes for wine. https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2019/3/6/hmc-vineyard-environmental-review/ https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2019/3/6/hmc-vineyard-env... : dated but not much has changed for the farmers there.

vr46 5y ago

This is a tad late to acknowledge. I was casually pursuing a story on the world water crisis in 2009/10 and there was already a massive load of literature on the subject, including much on California and Colorado, with Peter Gleick already quite the expert on the issues, so I felt I was a decade late addressing it. Turned out to be too hard to photograph at the time (without lots of budget) but it was endlessly fascinating weaving my way across North and Central America looking at the warnings, the cleanups, the aftermaths of disasters and noting that the legal frameworks of the time basically encouraged and incentivized the root causes. America has the worst regulations and protections I've seen across any advanced nation, Australia comes close though.