The farmers are receiving a huge subsidy already: the water. Water being available for irrigation there at all is the result of a massive dam building project s

The farmers are receiving a huge subsidy already: the water. Water being available for irrigation there at all is the result of a massive dam building project specifically for that. The farmers receive the water far far below the cost associated with building the dams, even though the farmers paying for the irrigation water was the justification for building them in the first place. The farmers can't afford to grow anything at a profit if they pay the full price of the water, and the crops they can grow in these regions aren't really worth anything anyway. The whole thing is an economic and ecological disaster and there's no clean way out. The entire western US political network is build around the interaction of water and agriculture and there is certainly no way out that isn't political suicide. But hey at least the dams will eventually silt up and stop providing even that use, but stay in place for potentially thousands of years a blight on mountain rivers eventually outlasting probably even the memory of the name of this country.