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Yeah, so markets aren't necessarily the answer to everything. Simply making water more expensive isn't necessarily going to decrease its consumption, as hawkice

Yeah, so markets aren't necessarily the answer to everything. Simply making water more expensive isn't necessarily going to decrease its consumption, as hawkice has said in this thread. And I'm really not a fan of how this article vilifies the farmers. This quote sums it up: > [This awesome thing would give] farmers an opportunity to sell their [water] rights to developers rather than using them for low-value crops. "Low-value crops", eh? Sure, make farmers use water more efficiently, but it seems pretty silly to value the construction of new buildings over the production of food.

gambiting 12y ago
Yeah, it's like saying that people drive too much,so we should increase the price of fuel tenfold,so they will drive less. All is great, but if because of it they now can't afford to get to work, then you have just created a new host of problems. Increasing the price of water seems like a knee-jerk reaction to this problem.
Xylakant 12y ago
> "Low-value crops", eh? Sure, make farmers use water more efficiently, but it seems pretty silly to value the construction of new buildings over the production of food. Is it really that easy? Food >> Buildings? A lot of crops are grown that never end up on your plate - biofuel, exported food, stuff that in the end rots in the silos. It might really be valuable to rethink the priorities here.
- AshFurrow 12y ago
  If we want to have that discussion, I think that'd be a great one to have. But that was not the author's intention.
deleted 12y ago
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pjc50 12y ago
You can import food. You can't import housing.
Shivetya 12y ago
if farmings only viable in an area which requires piping water into it, is means it is only viable because someone else is paying much of the underlying costs. that is what happens in California, the water is so heavily subsidized that only a fool wouldn't take advantage of it. We essentially pay people to waste it.
madaxe_again 12y ago
It doesn't vilify them, so much as throw them squarely under the bus while blindly ignoring the fact that the farmers operate as they do because they have no choice and are either owned or to all intents and purposes owned by huge agribusiness, who make vast profits at the expense of stupid things that nobody cares about, like... drinking water.

gambiting 12y ago

Yeah, it's like saying that people drive too much,so we should increase the price of fuel tenfold,so they will drive less. All is great, but if because of it they now can't afford to get to work, then you have just created a new host of problems. Increasing the price of water seems like a knee-jerk reaction to this problem.

Xylakant 12y ago

> "Low-value crops", eh? Sure, make farmers use water more efficiently, but it seems pretty silly to value the construction of new buildings over the production of food. Is it really that easy? Food >> Buildings? A lot of crops are grown that never end up on your plate - biofuel, exported food, stuff that in the end rots in the silos. It might really be valuable to rethink the priorities here.

AshFurrow 12y ago
If we want to have that discussion, I think that'd be a great one to have. But that was not the author's intention.

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

pjc50 12y ago

You can import food. You can't import housing.

Shivetya 12y ago

if farmings only viable in an area which requires piping water into it, is means it is only viable because someone else is paying much of the underlying costs. that is what happens in California, the water is so heavily subsidized that only a fool wouldn't take advantage of it. We essentially pay people to waste it.

madaxe_again 12y ago

It doesn't vilify them, so much as throw them squarely under the bus while blindly ignoring the fact that the farmers operate as they do because they have no choice and are either owned or to all intents and purposes owned by huge agribusiness, who make vast profits at the expense of stupid things that nobody cares about, like... drinking water.