3 ms·

You've lived and traveled in Califoria and the west but have you tried to grow anything here? There's a reason we've built vast megaprojects to pump water aroun

You've lived and traveled in Califoria and the west but have you tried to grow anything here? There's a reason we've built vast megaprojects to pump water around the West: our deserts have been the terminus for the biological nutrient cycle for millions of years through multiple climate cycles resulting in an incredibly fertile ecosystem, despite its desolate appearance. Combined with the heat, it creates the perfect conditions for an industry that has dominated the nation's agricultural production in foods that humans want to eat. It's a lot easier to move water than to increase the carrying capacity of an ecosystem. At this scale, regional sustainability is an illusion. Even the Amazon rainforest is not sustainable without _transcontinental_ winds that carry massive amounts of nutrients from African dry lake beds to South America [1]. Make no mistake, we're not just talking about the sustainibility of cities in the western US but food security and quality of life for the entire United States. [1] https://www.nasa.gov/content/goddard/nasa-satellite-reveals-how-much-saharan-dust-feeds-amazon-s-plants https://www.nasa.gov/content/goddard/nasa-satellite-reveals-...

vidanay 4y ago
I don't think California is more fertile than the Midwest on a soil-analysis basis. The nearly double growing season is what is the game changer.
- edmcnulty101 4y ago
  I think the Southeast will happily take over this nearly double growing season, with their climate. Let the desert return to being a desert.
oblib 4y ago
From what I gathered this is not about the San Joaquin Valley farms, it's about Vegas, Phoenix, Palm Springs & Desert Hot Springs (Riverside County) and water for people living there. Vegas went from 230,000 in 1970 to over 2.5 million residents in those years. Phoenix from 870,000 to 4,652,000. Riverside County from 44,579 to 2,544,820 So now we've got over 10 Million people living in the desert in just 3 those areas. Aside from that, I lived in Sylmar, Ca in the `70s on the last parcel of ag zoned land there, so yeah, we did grow there. When we bought our place there was a small 2 bedroon home on it, an orchard of fruit trees, a large garden, and we raised chickens and rabbits and a few cows (one at a time) there. Our home was the oldest house in Sylmar at the time and it was akin to an oasis compared to most of the homes there. Because of the ag zoning we had two water lines, one for the home and one for the orchard & garden and we got a huge discount on the ag water line.
- akiselev 4y ago
  I'm talking about the entire southwest, not just San Joaquin Valley. In agriculture, Riverside County is the 13th most productive county in the state in planted crops with $1.2 billion in cash receipts on about 210,000 acres [1]. That's more than any single county in Florida [2] based on crop value and the entire state of Florida produces 5-6 times more agricultural products than Riverside County on ten times the acreage. Most of that is in the Coachella Valley that is adjacent to Palm Springs/Desert Hot Springs and this productivity is despite the massive environmental disaster that is the Salton Sea [3]. I don't have an agricultural report on hand for Maricopa County (Phoenix) but based off a cursory search it produces about a third of the agricultural output of Arizona, which as a whole totals half the cash receipts of Florida's industry, despite a third of the population (though I believe AZ is a lot less productive per acre than FL because it's a lot of pasture). Now, don't get me wrong: analyzing agricultural productivity - let alone the sustainability of entire metropolises - in dollars per anything is a fool's errand that obliterates all nuance. I'm just trying to illustrate that most [4] of these cities weren't dropped in the middle of desolate wastelands by hopeless fools that kept on attracting more fools. They were founded because the deserts of the southwest provide an ideal environment and all we needed to do was bring a single ingredient. Just take a look at Phoenix in 1885 [5]: farmland as far as the eye can see, half a century before pumping mass amounts of groundwater for agriculture was even an option. When it comes to the food people want to eat, each [4] of these regions more than pull their own weight [6]. Unless we plan on transitioning the entire country to a wheat/corn/beef/pork/chicken-only diet or significantly decreasing food security or quality of life for everyone, we have to come to terms with the fact that the entire country is not sustainable without the Southwest, which means the region's water supply a national concern. We could completely depopulate all the big cities in Arizona, Nevada, and California without saving as much as a fifth of the water we currently use because the rest is used to feed the nation. [1] 2020 numbers: http://www.rivcoawm.org/Portals/0/PDF/2020-Crop%20Report.pdf http://www.rivcoawm.org/Portals/0/PDF/2020-Crop%20Report.pdf [2] Florida was first wet state that came to mind and it's top third to middle of the pack nationally in agriculture depending on the specific food group so I think it's representative. 2017 numbers: https://www.fdacs.gov/Agriculture-Industry/Florida-Agriculture-Overview-and-Statistics https://www.fdacs.gov/Agriculture-Industry/Florida-Agricultu... [3] More precisely, farmers caused that disaster to begin with, but the area is recovering and they are are adopting more sustainable techniques. [4] I'm ignoring Vegas because it's an outlier that started out as a supply stop for the United Pacific railroad. It only grew to its current ridiculous size when Nevada legalized gambling and the economic activity from the construction of the Hoover dam let the gambling industry develop a permanent foothold that sustained the city. [5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Phoenix,_Arizona#/media/File:Phoenix1885-AerialMap_HiRes.jpg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Phoenix,_Arizona#/m... [6] We'd actually need to look at export numbers to get a more accurate picture but i.e. nearly half of Arizona's agriculture is exported if I'm understanding the ag department correctly.

vidanay 4y ago

I don't think California is more fertile than the Midwest on a soil-analysis basis. The nearly double growing season is what is the game changer.

edmcnulty101 4y ago
I think the Southeast will happily take over this nearly double growing season, with their climate. Let the desert return to being a desert.

oblib 4y ago

From what I gathered this is not about the San Joaquin Valley farms, it's about Vegas, Phoenix, Palm Springs & Desert Hot Springs (Riverside County) and water for people living there. Vegas went from 230,000 in 1970 to over 2.5 million residents in those years. Phoenix from 870,000 to 4,652,000. Riverside County from 44,579 to 2,544,820 So now we've got over 10 Million people living in the desert in just 3 those areas. Aside from that, I lived in Sylmar, Ca in the `70s on the last parcel of ag zoned land there, so yeah, we did grow there. When we bought our place there was a small 2 bedroon home on it, an orchard of fruit trees, a large garden, and we raised chickens and rabbits and a few cows (one at a time) there. Our home was the oldest house in Sylmar at the time and it was akin to an oasis compared to most of the homes there. Because of the ag zoning we had two water lines, one for the home and one for the orchard & garden and we got a huge discount on the ag water line.

akiselev 4y ago
I'm talking about the entire southwest, not just San Joaquin Valley. In agriculture, Riverside County is the 13th most productive county in the state in planted crops with $1.2 billion in cash receipts on about 210,000 acres [1]. That's more than any single county in Florida [2] based on crop value and the entire state of Florida produces 5-6 times more agricultural products than Riverside County on ten times the acreage. Most of that is in the Coachella Valley that is adjacent to Palm Springs/Desert Hot Springs and this productivity is despite the massive environmental disaster that is the Salton Sea [3]. I don't have an agricultural report on hand for Maricopa County (Phoenix) but based off a cursory search it produces about a third of the agricultural output of Arizona, which as a whole totals half the cash receipts of Florida's industry, despite a third of the population (though I believe AZ is a lot less productive per acre than FL because it's a lot of pasture). Now, don't get me wrong: analyzing agricultural productivity - let alone the sustainability of entire metropolises - in dollars per anything is a fool's errand that obliterates all nuance. I'm just trying to illustrate that most [4] of these cities weren't dropped in the middle of desolate wastelands by hopeless fools that kept on attracting more fools. They were founded because the deserts of the southwest provide an ideal environment and all we needed to do was bring a single ingredient. Just take a look at Phoenix in 1885 [5]: farmland as far as the eye can see, half a century before pumping mass amounts of groundwater for agriculture was even an option. When it comes to the food people want to eat, each [4] of these regions more than pull their own weight [6]. Unless we plan on transitioning the entire country to a wheat/corn/beef/pork/chicken-only diet or significantly decreasing food security or quality of life for everyone, we have to come to terms with the fact that the entire country is not sustainable without the Southwest, which means the region's water supply a national concern. We could completely depopulate all the big cities in Arizona, Nevada, and California without saving as much as a fifth of the water we currently use because the rest is used to feed the nation. [1] 2020 numbers: http://www.rivcoawm.org/Portals/0/PDF/2020-Crop%20Report.pdf http://www.rivcoawm.org/Portals/0/PDF/2020-Crop%20Report.pdf [2] Florida was first wet state that came to mind and it's top third to middle of the pack nationally in agriculture depending on the specific food group so I think it's representative. 2017 numbers: https://www.fdacs.gov/Agriculture-Industry/Florida-Agriculture-Overview-and-Statistics https://www.fdacs.gov/Agriculture-Industry/Florida-Agricultu... [3] More precisely, farmers caused that disaster to begin with, but the area is recovering and they are are adopting more sustainable techniques. [4] I'm ignoring Vegas because it's an outlier that started out as a supply stop for the United Pacific railroad. It only grew to its current ridiculous size when Nevada legalized gambling and the economic activity from the construction of the Hoover dam let the gambling industry develop a permanent foothold that sustained the city. [5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Phoenix,_Arizona#/media/File:Phoenix1885-AerialMap_HiRes.jpg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Phoenix,_Arizona#/m... [6] We'd actually need to look at export numbers to get a more accurate picture but i.e. nearly half of Arizona's agriculture is exported if I'm understanding the ag department correctly.