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Absolutely true. Without agriculture, there would be plenty of water for residential uses. Of course without agriculture we'd all starve to death, so banning fa

• A4ET8a8uTh0 3y ago
  Somehow I am not entirely certain that we would all starve without some of the water intensive agricultural staples in US ( corn, almonds come to mind ). I do agree with SA point.
  • myshpa 3y ago
    Just 13% of corn is consumed by people. Most of it is used as animal feed.
  • JoeAltmaier 3y ago
    An interesting question. Used to be Iowa produced enough corn to feed two United States (if we were content to eat only corn). Probably overkill. Corn has commercial uses too. In fact it's largely used for that - sugar, starch, protein, roughage are used in all sorts of processes. Touch nearly anything near you right now, corn was involved in it's manufacture. Hard to say what impact cutting back on corn would have. A big one.
    • wincy 3y ago
      Are they growing corn in places that have water problems? I thought corn was largely grown in places that don’t need much irrigation, or at least isn’t having problems with its water table.
      • JoeAltmaier 3y ago
        True. Here in Iowa we water our corn like god intended - the water falls from the sky.
    • 0_____0 3y ago
      1.4% of the 97MM~ acres of corn planted go to human consumption (figures a few years old). Big fractions go to biofuel and animal feed, a slightly smaller fraction to industrial feedstocks. Edit: in the US
    • conradev 3y ago
      The US government currently pays farmers to grow some corn for fuel, as well. One fun factor is that corn is drought sensitive (esp during certain stages of growth) and only about a fifth of our corn is irrigated or something like that. As climate change heats up, we may experience more crop loss.
• kodah 3y ago
  Mostly horses would be without alfalfa and there would be less avocados and almonds. I think these are the main offenders iirc.
  • JoeAltmaier 3y ago
    Almond trees get a bad rep. They use about the same water as many other trees. And we plant trees by the millions because, trees are a good idea. Oxygen and so forth. The problem with almonds isn't so much that the trees require water (like anything else). It's that they're inevitably planted where water is a particular problem. Like, needing to pump and deplete groundwater.
    • onlyrealcuzzo 3y ago
      On top of that, the water in per calorie out is not great. IIUC, it takes more water to produce a single almond (~7 calories) than an orange (~45 calories).
      • freedude 3y ago
        You are hyper focusing on one metric which is short-sighted. Almonds are a great source of protein. Oranges are negligible by comparison. Almonds are a good source of vitamin E. Oranges contain none by comparison. Almonds are high in healthy monounsaturated fats. Oranges contain none by comparison. So now compare water per the above metrics and see where Almonds stand. Almonds and Oranges are both unique and valuable in their own way.
        • soperj 3y ago
          Also, I don't think it's calories that we're really short on.
        • dclowd9901 3y ago
          Then grow soy. Almonds might be better than oranges in this regard but soy is better than almonds, and better for the environment to grow.
• echelon 3y ago
  > Of course without agriculture we'd all starve to death, so banning farming is no solution. Gradually shift agricultural activity to states that do not experience drought. There's plenty of arable land in the US.
  • HDThoreaun 3y ago
    Not for growing the fruit trees that california grows. The imperial and central valleys are legitimately some of the best land in the world for agriculture productivity, which of course is why there's so much agriculture going on there.
    • 1234letshaveatw 3y ago
      Not without water it isn't
    • civilitty 3y ago
      California’s land is so arable specifically because there’s less rain to wash out soluble minerals from the soil. It’s a catch 22: the more wet a place is, the less micronutrients there are available due to constant run off. As it turns out, historically it has been easier to bring water to a region than to replenish micronutrients in the soil to support industrial farming.
      • lanstin 3y ago
        our (San Jose CA) plums this year are rather bland, due to the excellent rainy season. i just hope the pomegranates are tart enough, they were so enjoyable the last two years.
• Kalium 3y ago
  > Of course without agriculture we'd all starve to death, so banning farming is no solution. You're absolutely right. Yet, much like the "No Farms No Food" bumper-sticker slogan, there's some rhetorical sleight of hand going on here. Those stickers are correct in a general sense, but the slogan is rarely deployed in a general sense. It's generally used to defend uneconomical farming in environmentally questionable places. Similarly, you're completely correct in every single way that we need agriculture and banning it is not a solution. However, there's perhaps a substantial difference between banning all agriculture everywhere and matching the agriculture in a location to the resources available to support it. If there's inadequate water or sun to grow crops that need lots of both, perhaps that location is not the best for those crops. Agriculture is essential for human survival. It's possible that growing almonds in areas with sharply limited and poorly managed water is less than essential for human survival.
  • bannedbybros 3y ago
    [dead]
  • nielsbot 3y ago
    I've heard almonds need a lot of water, but I think the biggest culprit is exported alfalfa. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/sep/12/colorado-drought-water-alfalfa-farmers-conservation https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/sep/12/colorado...
    • hombre_fatal 3y ago
      Interesting lack of discussion around animal agriculture in these comments. Closest convo we get is about alfalfa for horse food. Hmm, wouldn’t want to address the elephant in the room though.
      • 8note 3y ago
        The animals are a range. So.ething like ranching may be assigned a ton of water, but it's not like the rain will stop falling on forest because there's no cows there, and the only water being taken out at the end is the weight of the cows. If you're missing river and aquifer water, you want to tackle the users of river and aquifer water
• njovin 3y ago
  While we're at it, stop subsidizing water that's used for exports. If a corporation wants to grow crops in California and sell them overseas, they shouldn't be getting cheaper water than US residents.
  • crobertsbmw 3y ago
    Id vote to take it a step further and charge agriculture market prices for water regardless of where they sell their crop. Seems like that would largely solve the issue altogether.
    • ajmurmann 3y ago
      I've been long in favor of this and didn't understand why we don't do this, since it's a no-brainer. Then I learned that farmers don't get their water from the faucet. The water comes from their own wells, creeks running over their property etc. They have water rights that in many cases have been in place for 100+ years. Touching those and attacking their livelihood through such big moves would likely lead to more upheaval than any politician is comfortable with.
      • waterhouse 3y ago
        Well, then why not buy that water from the farmers at a market price?
        • ajmurmann 3y ago
          That's an interesting idea. I wonder how that would work for things like not taking water out of the aquifer. I guess a rate could be negotiated.
      • njovin 3y ago
        55% of the California's allotment of water from the Colorado river goes to farms that grow feed for livestock. That's a considerable amount of non-well water that's being practically given away to allow corporations to profit.
• scruple 3y ago
  Of course, but also literally no one would starve to death if we stopped growing Almonds in the Central Valley.
• Retric 3y ago
  > Of course without agriculture we'd all starve to death, so banning farming is no solution. Banning farming in California isn’t the same as banning farming globally. Across much of the US not only is water plentiful crops get enough rainfall to not actually need irrigation. And of course banning CA farming is hardly needed, even a 5% drop would free up plenty of water. Cities would be much better off simply buying farmland with water rights and leaving it fallow than implementing severe water conservation methods.
  • ericmay 3y ago
    and it has great positive externalities! If California is growing a little less stuff that I'm buying in Ohio, Ohio farmers can start selling it at a profitable price point. Then we're not transporting as much across the country, not draining California of water, employing more Ohio farmers, and diversifying our food supply chains.
    • mrguyorama 3y ago
      We probably SHOULD ban all farming in California, simply to improve the conditions of rural communities that used to farm but can't profitably compete anymore. We could use a revival of some blue collar communities, and the only losers would be agribusiness in california, to which I say, don't create a farming company in the desert maybe.
      • deleted 3y ago
        [deleted]
      • ericmay 3y ago
        I'm open-minded here but why would we ban all farming in California? My understanding is that farming can be done economically and environmentally friendly, it's just moreso the scale that is the problem. I'd like to see more independent farmers throughout California and the country as a whole if possible.
    • singleshot_ 3y ago
      It’s very interesting that I’ve heard it suggested to build a water pipeline to deliver water from the east to the west because the west is out of water, but I have not heard it proposed to create a pipeline carrying nutrient slurry from Ohio to California in case California has to stop growing food on account of being out of water. Maybe there’s a reason we are supposed to be thinking inside of boxes, after all.
• kajaktum 3y ago
  Is there enough forces trying to solve this issue? Isn't there a void here for the market to intervene? Why hasn't it? AFAIK agriculture is quite inefficient.
  • mrguyorama 3y ago
    Because "the market" doesn't actually fix shit, even if water rights were anything like a market system in california. The ONLY thing a market does is incentivize people to increase profits, period. Unless you can tie proper better water management DIRECTLY to increased profits, with ZERO ALTERNATIVE WAY TO DECREASE WATER COST, the market will do ANYTHING other than reduce water usage. For example, if it's cheaper to lobby the government of california to force citizens to use less water, then that's exactly what will be done. Which is what HAS been done for at least a decade. "The market" isn't magic, despite what your Economics 101 youtube channel of choice says.
    • kajaktum 3y ago
      As opposed to what? Good will of the people to finally figure something out? lol. The only tool we have are incentives. Good luck convincing people "intellectually" or "philosopically" or "logically" to do the right thing.
• eliseumds 3y ago
  I recently drove more than 1000 miles from Sao Paulo (Brazil) towards the south and many cities looked dry, completely covered with soybean plantations, and they're growing quickly [1]. Brazil basically exports a shitton of water in the form of meat. We have 36 million hectares dedicated to soybeans alone, that's Germany's total area. I wonder how long this is going to last. [1] https://agenciadenoticias.ibge.gov.br/agencia-noticias/2012-agencia-de-noticias/noticias/37135-estimativa-de-maio-preve-safra-recorde-de-305-4-milhoes-de-toneladas-em-2023 https://agenciadenoticias.ibge.gov.br/agencia-noticias/2012-...
  • mcdonje 3y ago
    IIRC, most of Brazil's soy exports are feeding pigs in China.
    • eliseumds 3y ago
      I should've typed "meat and soybeans". You're probably right about the destination of most of our soybeans.
• JohnFen 3y ago
  Who is advocating banning farming? I think the point is that putting effort into reducing the water waste associated with farming is higher-impact than residential water use. But we should be putting effort into both.
  • LeifCarrotson 3y ago
    If you priced agricultural water at levels comparable to residential use, and mandated water conservation efforts with similar cost per gallon lost, that would be the same thing as banning farming in the California desert.
    • JohnFen 3y ago
      > that would be the same thing as banning farming in the California desert. Which wouldn't be the worst thing. Recognizing that the true cost of farming in the desert makes it uneconomical isn't the same as banning farming in general.
• pfannkuchen 3y ago
  > Of course without agriculture we'd all starve to death Can’t we just farm in places with abundant natural sources of water and transport it to places without? Or transport the water. Places without water tend to have more sun, so we could probably work out some kind of energy-for-water trade.
  • RandallBrown 3y ago
    Not everywhere with abundant natural water sources are very good for growing crops. Warm dry places tend to be good because you can grow crops there year round and they get a lot of sunlight. That's not necessarily the case in places with lots of natural water. Of course, we do farm in places with lots of water too, it's just not the same crops.
    • pfannkuchen 3y ago
      It feels like deleting out of season produce or relocating it to the opposite hemisphere is less bad than people living in these regions being super water constrained in day to day living. Also anecdotally I don’t see much out of season produce coming from arid parts of the US, it’s all South America or Mexico already anyway AFAICT.
• tcfhgj 3y ago
  One could also move to a plant based diet, saves the majority of agriculture
  • myshpa 3y ago
    https://ourworldindata.org/land-use-diets https://ourworldindata.org/land-use-diets If the world adopted a plant-based diet we would reduce global agricultural land use from 4 to 1 billion hectares
• cwkoss 3y ago
  Saudi Arabia isn't shipping the water around the world, they are growing water-intensive agricultural products in arizona, and shipping those products. Which is kind of wild, but less wild then how I parsed your comment before noticing what the "(effectively)" was doing.
• tnel77 3y ago
  I don’t think anyone wants to outright ban farming in these drier states. I think most people are looking to reduce water consumption by eliminating the production of water hungry crops. Surely there are crops that can be grow in dry climates that use less water than almonds.
• rasz 3y ago
  Can you recommend some recipes for alfalfa? Im fine with nuts so feel free to throw some almonds into the mix.
• ornornor 3y ago
  > banning farming is no solution There are other options between doing nothing like now and outright banning agriculture. You could, for example, not try and farm water intensive crops in a desert. You could, for example, use the water to grow vegetables rather than animals which need much more water. You could, for example, farm crops that are meant to be grown in the region where the farm is.