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There's a lot of agriculture that occurs in California. I am certain people in the 32 states within Mississippi watershed eat a fair amount of food or enjoy low

There's a lot of agriculture that occurs in California. I am certain people in the 32 states within Mississippi watershed eat a fair amount of food or enjoy lower food prices that occur in part because of California agriculture. Part of the whole reason of being in a 50 state union is to collectively pool our resources to improve everyone's lives and the wider economy.

MichaelCollins 4y ago
If only there were some way of pricing the expense of producing something into the price paid by those who desire it.
- BayAreaEscapee 4y ago
  Wasn't it the great economist Milton Friedman who said, "From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs"? Or was that someone else who said that? In all seriousness, the way the west (and California in particular) price water defies logic. All this talk about senior and junior water rights doesn't make any sense: it only benefits the entrenched incumbents. A properly setup market would simply price out water uses whose utility was materially less than demand of the produced product.
  - dimitrios1 4y ago
    Not sure if being facetious, but just in case not or in case others are unfamiliar: It's a quotation used by the socialist trio of Cabet-Blanc-Marx, and itself has origins in scripture, just with a materialist reframing, instead of a spiritual one.
  - aaaaaaaaaaab 4y ago
    No, it was another capitalist thinker. He loved capitalism so much he even wrote a book about capital!
  - dpflug 4y ago
    As any machine learning dev knows, building an accurate utility function is a bugaboo.
  - jonstewart 4y ago
    No, about as wrong on the quotation as can be: it’s a socialist slogan, popularized by Karl Marx. However, I’m a big fan of attributing it to Friedman. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/From_each_according_to_his_ability,_to_each_according_to_his_needs https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/From_each_according_to_his_a...
bombcar 4y ago
Inaccurate water pricing causes weird things like Californians eating food grown in the Midwest so they can send food to the Midwest to eat.
- epmatsw 4y ago
  Is that weird? Seems optimal for each region to grow the most efficient crops for their local conditions, which would require at least some of that type of trade.
  - pc86 4y ago
    Except you have people in California growing almonds in the desert.
    - njarboe 4y ago
      Deserts are great places to grow things if you have the water available. Basically the foundation of civilization. See Egypt and Mesopotamia. Almonds grow great in California and are a great cash crop. We need to trade something to China for all that stuff.
      - pc86 4y ago
        Isn't it pretty clear that California doesn't have the water available?
      - bombcar 4y ago
        Almonds and cotton require basically the same setup apparently - so growing almonds in cotton states would make more sense but nobody wants Georgian almonds
    - samatman 4y ago
      I've responded to this four times now, it turns out. https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=samatman%20almonds&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...
GeekyBear 4y ago
Perhaps we should be shouldn't be growing food in a desert? Farmers in California are literally pumping the aquifers dry. There are already people who have had to abandon their homes because you can't just dig the wells deeper to hit water anymore. >A frenzy of well drilling by California farmers leaves taps running dry https://www.latimes.com/projects/california-farms-water-wells-drought/ https://www.latimes.com/projects/california-farms-water-well...
- atyppo 4y ago
  The notion of growing "food" (i.e. almonds for export to China) in a desert is ludicrous, but how would you accomplish a ban on agriculture? At best, you might be able to create a program for farmers to give up their water rights in exchange for compensation. Even this is dubious, however. Water rights east of the Mississippi work differently than water rights to the west. In the west, they are based on seniority.
  - GeekyBear 4y ago
    >how would you accomplish a ban on agriculture? Ground water is a limited public resource. Farmers do not have the right to pump the aquifers dry and render the area uninhabitable. I would imagine that you could require a license to pump ground water in areas where the ground water level has already dropped dangerously low. >Water rights east of the Mississippi work differently than water rights to the west. In the west, they are based on seniority. That applies to water on top of the ground (lakes, rivers, streams), not the water under the ground.
- rrss 4y ago
  The Central Valley is not a desert, I do not like this meme. Farmers in California were running out of water 100 years ago too, and people responded with massive engineering projects to regulate water throughout the year and move it from places that were at the time water-rich to places where more water would allow using the extremely fertile land with favorable weather for agriculture. It’s not insane to consider doing the same again.
workingon 4y ago
Yeah these almonds are so yummy
newaccount2021 4y ago
wly_cdgr 4y ago
Why is that food grown in California rather than in places with better water situations?
- rrss 4y ago
  long growing season sun good soil, almost all capability class 1 ideal mediterranean climate
  - MichaelCollins 4y ago
    > ideal mediterranean climate Not such an ideal climate evidently, since they're so desperate to import water.
    - rrss 4y ago
      No. More water arriving directly in the Central Valley would make it worse for agriculture, not better. Rain or snow are bad for crops. Controlled irrigation using water from somewhere else plus the mediterranean climate combine to make the Central Valley very productive.
      - rrss 4y ago
        P.S. this part about needing irrigation is not unique to the Central Valley. Irrigation agriculture, rather than depending on natural water for growing, was an innovation humanity developed 6000+ years ago.
        MichaelCollins 4y ago
        If it were such a great climate for growing things, they wouldn't be talking about getting fresh water from thousands of miles away. It used to be a great climate for growing things, a century ago. But that was during an abnormally wet period in Californian history. California is usually much dryer than it was a century ago, and is drying out once again. In California, people think one or two centuries of experience with the land is a long time. In most of the world, that's a joke. Try farming the land for a thousand years before you form such expectations.
detaro 4y ago
> There's a lot of agriculture that occurs in California. in good part because California doesn't charge people a fair price for the limited resources.
jonstewart 4y ago
In fact, California has plenty of water—except for the fact that its farmers mismanage their water and demand that it be free. The Mississippi River basin is hardly an agricultural desert.

MichaelCollins 4y ago

If only there were some way of pricing the expense of producing something into the price paid by those who desire it.

BayAreaEscapee 4y ago
Wasn't it the great economist Milton Friedman who said, "From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs"? Or was that someone else who said that? In all seriousness, the way the west (and California in particular) price water defies logic. All this talk about senior and junior water rights doesn't make any sense: it only benefits the entrenched incumbents. A properly setup market would simply price out water uses whose utility was materially less than demand of the produced product.
- dimitrios1 4y ago
  Not sure if being facetious, but just in case not or in case others are unfamiliar: It's a quotation used by the socialist trio of Cabet-Blanc-Marx, and itself has origins in scripture, just with a materialist reframing, instead of a spiritual one.
- aaaaaaaaaaab 4y ago
  No, it was another capitalist thinker. He loved capitalism so much he even wrote a book about capital!
- dpflug 4y ago
  As any machine learning dev knows, building an accurate utility function is a bugaboo.
- jonstewart 4y ago
  No, about as wrong on the quotation as can be: it’s a socialist slogan, popularized by Karl Marx. However, I’m a big fan of attributing it to Friedman. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/From_each_according_to_his_ability,_to_each_according_to_his_needs https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/From_each_according_to_his_a...

bombcar 4y ago

Inaccurate water pricing causes weird things like Californians eating food grown in the Midwest so they can send food to the Midwest to eat.

epmatsw 4y ago
Is that weird? Seems optimal for each region to grow the most efficient crops for their local conditions, which would require at least some of that type of trade.
- pc86 4y ago
  Except you have people in California growing almonds in the desert.
  - njarboe 4y ago
    Deserts are great places to grow things if you have the water available. Basically the foundation of civilization. See Egypt and Mesopotamia. Almonds grow great in California and are a great cash crop. We need to trade something to China for all that stuff.
    - pc86 4y ago
      Isn't it pretty clear that California doesn't have the water available?
    - bombcar 4y ago
      Almonds and cotton require basically the same setup apparently - so growing almonds in cotton states would make more sense but nobody wants Georgian almonds
  - samatman 4y ago
    I've responded to this four times now, it turns out. https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=samatman%20almonds&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...

GeekyBear 4y ago

Perhaps we should be shouldn't be growing food in a desert? Farmers in California are literally pumping the aquifers dry. There are already people who have had to abandon their homes because you can't just dig the wells deeper to hit water anymore. >A frenzy of well drilling by California farmers leaves taps running dry https://www.latimes.com/projects/california-farms-water-wells-drought/ https://www.latimes.com/projects/california-farms-water-well...

atyppo 4y ago
The notion of growing "food" (i.e. almonds for export to China) in a desert is ludicrous, but how would you accomplish a ban on agriculture? At best, you might be able to create a program for farmers to give up their water rights in exchange for compensation. Even this is dubious, however. Water rights east of the Mississippi work differently than water rights to the west. In the west, they are based on seniority.
- GeekyBear 4y ago
  >how would you accomplish a ban on agriculture? Ground water is a limited public resource. Farmers do not have the right to pump the aquifers dry and render the area uninhabitable. I would imagine that you could require a license to pump ground water in areas where the ground water level has already dropped dangerously low. >Water rights east of the Mississippi work differently than water rights to the west. In the west, they are based on seniority. That applies to water on top of the ground (lakes, rivers, streams), not the water under the ground.
rrss 4y ago
The Central Valley is not a desert, I do not like this meme. Farmers in California were running out of water 100 years ago too, and people responded with massive engineering projects to regulate water throughout the year and move it from places that were at the time water-rich to places where more water would allow using the extremely fertile land with favorable weather for agriculture. It’s not insane to consider doing the same again.

workingon 4y ago

Yeah these almonds are so yummy

newaccount2021 4y ago

wly_cdgr 4y ago

Why is that food grown in California rather than in places with better water situations?

rrss 4y ago
long growing season sun good soil, almost all capability class 1 ideal mediterranean climate
- MichaelCollins 4y ago
  > ideal mediterranean climate Not such an ideal climate evidently, since they're so desperate to import water.
  - rrss 4y ago
    No. More water arriving directly in the Central Valley would make it worse for agriculture, not better. Rain or snow are bad for crops. Controlled irrigation using water from somewhere else plus the mediterranean climate combine to make the Central Valley very productive.
    - rrss 4y ago
      P.S. this part about needing irrigation is not unique to the Central Valley. Irrigation agriculture, rather than depending on natural water for growing, was an innovation humanity developed 6000+ years ago.
      - MichaelCollins 4y ago
        If it were such a great climate for growing things, they wouldn't be talking about getting fresh water from thousands of miles away. It used to be a great climate for growing things, a century ago. But that was during an abnormally wet period in Californian history. California is usually much dryer than it was a century ago, and is drying out once again. In California, people think one or two centuries of experience with the land is a long time. In most of the world, that's a joke. Try farming the land for a thousand years before you form such expectations.

detaro 4y ago

> There's a lot of agriculture that occurs in California. in good part because California doesn't charge people a fair price for the limited resources.

jonstewart 4y ago

In fact, California has plenty of water—except for the fact that its farmers mismanage their water and demand that it be free. The Mississippi River basin is hardly an agricultural desert.