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About time. Agriculture is using 80% of the water, but accounts for a mere 2% of the GDP (4% of employment)[1]. There's no reason we should be squeezing our r

by jkyle 11y ago

About time. Agriculture is using 80% of the water, but accounts for a mere 2% of the GDP (4% of employment)[1]. There's no reason we should be squeezing our rural and suburban centers that fuel the overwhelming majority of our economy while giving farmer's a free pass to suck the state dry of usable water which is mainly used for exported profits and not sustaining local industries. [1] http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/govbeat/wp/2015/04/03/agriculture-is-80-percent-of-water-use-in-california-why-arent-farmers-being-forced-to-cut-back/ http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/govbeat/wp/2015/04/03/ag... edit For clarification, mentioning the GDP is meant to show that cutting back on agricultural usage will not affect our economy catastrophically even if the industry sinks a bit. Will food prices go up? Perhaps. Further, if the point is food production and not food profit for the nation then the focus should be on producing the most water efficient foods (per calorie) not the most profitable foods produced under an assumption of free or near free water. So yeah, that might mean less prime rib and more black eyed peas for Americans (figuratively speaking). The cost of the product should reflect the cost of the resources required to produce. This is not the current case.

mc32 11y ago
Well, so long migrant workers. Thanks for your labor, but, having low skills, and no jobs in the fields because water is cut, time to face reality! There are lots of farm hands who'd be negatively affected. They are at the margins of society as it is.
- jkyle 11y ago
  Ideally, farmer's should be charged for water usage instead of water access. Many of the water rights mentioned in the article are access rights. Meaning they can pump and use as much as they want. Make inefficiency come with a cost and watch an entire new industry spring up around water efficiency. Water is a limited and precious resource. Prices should reflect that. Anything less is a subsidy padding the profits of industrial agriculture.
  - mc32 11y ago
    Agreed. The whole system needs to be updated and optimized differently, at least optimized towards efficient water usage, relative to the crop. My objection is the vilification of farmers. I.e. Farmers use 80%! Yet we urbanites are the ones first asked to conserve! The framing is very questionable.
    - rjsw 11y ago
      Why make it relative to the crop ? If California is no longer the best place to grow particular things then grow them elsewhere.
    - jkyle 11y ago
      No vilification of farmers here. The reason it's absurd to squeeze urbanites is their a minor user of the resource. You simply can't solve the problem by reducing urban water usage. You should always look at inefficiencies in the 80% before you squeeze the 20%. And if the industry contracts a bit, it's not the end of the world or even a significant impact on the economy.
      - yellowapple 11y ago
        > You simply can't solve the problem by reducing urban water usage. You simply can't solve the problem by reducing rural water usage, either. The most feasible solution would be to build desalinization plants. California is a coastal state, and the majority of its population lives in cities located along said coast; pushing those urban centers to oceanic water will immediately free up that 20% of inland water usage, even more of which could be freed up by farms using oceanic water as well.
- kansface 11y ago
  Protecting inefficient industries from their own inefficiencies to save jobs is not a viable long term strategy. Besides, its not within the power of the government to create rain. Job training and relocation programs can help.
monochromatic 11y ago
Why is that a comparison that makes sense? If we doubled the water available to tech companies, that wouldn't make them any more productive.
- jkyle 11y ago
  We're literally running out of water [1]. As in no more. There are entire counties who get nothing when they turn on their faucets. Nothing. No more. Not to mention the ground is sinking. [1] http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-famiglietti-drought-california-20150313-story.html http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-famiglietti-droug...
  - dirtae 11y ago
    Which entire counties get nothing when they turn on their faucets?
    - jkyle 11y ago
      Tulare ran out not too long ago.
      - dirtae 11y ago
        Visalia is the county seat of Tulare county. I cannot find any articles mentioning that people in Visalia get nothing when they turn on their faucets. Can you link me to a source?
      - millzlane 11y ago
        I found a link. I wasn't able to reply to the commenter below. http://sacramento.cbslocal.com/2015/04/30/california-a-state-of-survival/ http://sacramento.cbslocal.com/2015/04/30/california-a-state...
    - slayed0 11y ago
      edit: read that as countries, not counties India is getting there [1] [1]http://thewaterproject.org/water-in-crisis-india http://thewaterproject.org/water-in-crisis-india
WillPostForFood 11y ago
The primary contribution of agriculture is feeding people, not GDP. What does watering one's lawn contribute to?
- dragonwriter 11y ago
  > The primary contribution of agriculture is feeding people, not GDP. The primary value to California of exporting food (which is what most California agriculture is) is the economic activity produced. (Given a global food market with largely equivalent substitute goods, one could argue that the same is true of agriculture that is used for local consumption, as well.)
  - WillPostForFood 11y ago
    You say GDP contribution to Californianis more important than supplying food to the state/country/world. I say feeding people and keeping food prices low is more important than that particular economic statistic when looking at the value of water consumption.
    - Kalium 11y ago
      The point being made here is not that feeding people and keeping food prices low isn't important. The point being made here is that California agriculture isn't required to feed people or keep food prices low.
    - jkyle 11y ago
      If this is your honest opinion, you'd be pushing for emergency triage of water allocation for agriculture. Specifically, reducing luxury crops like almonds, beef, and chicken. We could cut our water usage in 1/2 and still produce enough nutritious food for the entire nation plus some. This coming from someone who has favorite pass time of smoking brisket, ribs, and grilling steaks. It's just the facts.
      - yellowapple 11y ago
hn9780470248775 11y ago
What an inane comparison. You can't eat apps. Well, actually we can, in the same way we can "grow cars in Iowa" (to borrow an example from economist Steven Landsburg). But do we want to?
- adventured 11y ago
  It's not inane. Look up how much of California's water is exported to other countries in the form of agriculture products. See: China's consumption of the California almond crop.
- jkyle 11y ago
  CA is a major exporter of agriculture. It can grow enough food to supply itself even with aggressive curtailing of agricultural output. If CA cities start running out of water supply, businesses will be affected. The ones that carry our GDP. If you're implying that cutting back CA Ag production would be a national harm, then the nation needs to pull it together and help CA support the industry. But in the end, this is just simple math. You can't solve CA's water crisis by only targeting residential usage. It's simply not a big enough slice of the pie.
  - yellowapple 11y ago
    It's not a bigger slice of the pie than agriculture, true, but it's a slice that's much easier to fix. This isn't to say that we shouldn't try to fix agricultural water consumption. Just that the calls to cut off agricultural water because "oh no they use 80% of the water" seem to reflect misplaced priorities.
mcsheffrey 11y ago
Cutting agricultural water usage doesn't just affect California. http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/explainer/2013/07/california_grows_all_of_our_fruits_and_vegetables_what_would_we_eat_without.html http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/explainer/2...
deleted 11y ago
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deleted 11y ago
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- alexhu11 11y ago
  What is a problem is selling taxpayer subsidized water to large corporate farmers in the middle of desert so that they can raise surplus crops while in the middle of the drought. Agriculture is fine. Subsidizing corporate behemoths in the Central Valley while wrecking our environment is not.
- wwweston 11y ago
  People usually bring up the GDP stuff not to criticize the fact that the US has managed to develop an national economy where most other sectors dwarf agriculture, but to pair two points: 1) California could afford to lose its agriculture sector 2) since water is increasingly scarce here, maybe the agriculture would be better done somewhere else too There's probably some counterarguments (even a 1% GDP contraction is going to hurt a bit and have some second-order effects, maybe trucking in food has its own problems, inertia in things like almond crops, I don't know), but we can probably stop short of accusing the people who bring it up of being critics of industrialization. :)
- jfoutz 11y ago
  Not at all. It's a marginal value question. When water is plentiful, people will find lots of uses for it beyond drinking it. For example, you can cook pasta with water - at the end of the cooking you just throw the water away. Water has been so inexpensive it makes sense to pour it right on to the ground to make plants grow. Now, water is getting a little harder to come by. It still makes sense to cook pasta with it, because very little is used. But perhaps it's not so useful to pour it on the ground for every type of plant. Perhaps there are certain strains or varieties that aren't quite so water intensive. I know this is true for tomatoes. So essentially you give up on the very water intensive kinds of plants, let the competition grow those where there is more water. That's a simplification, some things, like orchards take years and years to become productive. In those cases, perhaps it makes sense to pipe in water, desalinate ocean water, or whatever. Competition isn't going to pick up the slack, because it takes years and years to get productive. Food needs to be inexpensive, and readily available, subsidies absolutely make sense to make food inexpensive. But perhaps we don't need to subsidize quite as much of that 20% beyond the food we need.
deleted 11y ago
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chroncilinks 11y ago
4% of reported employment
chatmasta 11y ago
> usable water which is mainly used for exported profits and not sustaining local industries. When you say "exported" and "local" are you referring to California, or the United States? States need to be responsible for different resources, but as a whole, the United States must be self sufficient. No reasonable geopolitical strategy would require importing vital resources like food and wter.
- shmulkey18 11y ago
  When the Indian government implemented the strategy you suggest, it consigned the country to years of economic backwardness. "Self-sufficiency" is the road to poverty.
- dragonwriter 11y ago
  > States need to be responsible for different resources, but as a whole, the United States must be self sufficient. "Must be"? No. Perhaps it would be nice, but even that is questionable. > No reasonable geopolitical strategy would require importing vital resources like food and wter. "Only a Sith deals in absolutes." More to the point, a reasonable geopolitical strategy would do so if self-sufficiency was either unattainable, or merely had an opportunity costs that exceeded the strategic value. Anyhow, the US is a massive net food exporter; and if California cuts backs due to drought, that will make production elsewhere in the world -- including elsewhere in the US -- that would otherwise be economically marginal more viable. Even if self-sufficiency in food was essential, these cutbacks wouldn't threaten it. Anyway, these cutbacks are because there literally isn't water in the systems in which they hold rights to deliver to senior rights holders, not because farmers (which don't account for all the affected senior rights holders) are being politically targeted. Even if food self-sufficiency was a geopolitical strategic necessity, and even if curtailment would impact it, you can't deliver water that doesn't exist.
hyperbovine 11y ago
Some 30-80% (depending on the precipitation that year) of that 80% is pumped out of aquifers beneath the Central Valley and is not really available for urban use anyways. And it's not like urban users are blameless here. I mean, have you driven around Southern California? It shouldn't be the case that LA more closely resembles Miami than Phoenix.
intopieces 11y ago
The problem, though, is that the water taken up by agriculture and the water taken up by people in cities does not come from the same big bucket. A drop of water save by Ag doesn't equate to a drop of water that can be used in my shower. Infrastructure changes will have to happen and the 20% users will also have to make cuts.
- simoncion 11y ago
  [citation needed]
copsarebastards 11y ago
> Further, if the point is food production and not food profit for the nation then the focus should be on producing the most water efficient foods (per calorie) not the most profitable foods produced under an assumption of free or near free water. Wait, why are we measuring this per calorie? That's a terrible way to measure what should be produced. The US is still the fattest country in the world[1]. We don't need more calories, we need more nutrients. There are several measures of nutrient density[2]. Fats/sugars/proteins/alcohol (the things that contain calories) are macronutrients, so they are a component of nutrient density, but Americans are getting plenty of these. Optimizing incentives for calories would drive prices in a direction such that Americans will get even fatter. Let's not make this mistake. [1] http://www.worldobesity.org/site_media/library/resource_images/Overweight_and_obesity_in_Global_Adults_v2.pdf http://www.worldobesity.org/site_media/library/resource_imag... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nutrient_density https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nutrient_density EDIT: The popular discussion on this subject often centers around almonds, the comparison being that beef has a much higher calorie efficiency per water. If you look at nutrient density, almonds fare much better. EDIT 2: Australia has a standard for calculating nutrient density, which has been codified in the Nutrient Profiling Scoring Calculator (NPSC)[3]. [3] http://www.foodstandards.gov.au/industry/labelling/pages/nutrientprofilingcalculator/Default.aspx http://www.foodstandards.gov.au/industry/labelling/pages/nut...
graham1776 11y ago
Not one comment about water infrastructure? The great water technologies of the past fifty years have been completely ignored by the tech elite. Where does San Francisco get its water? It is crazy to me that we are proposing cutting back on water use when the real problem is a huge portion of the water we have is not being used effectively. We would not be having this discussion about power, sewer, gas or any other utility, but for some reason we see no value in capturing and retaining this resource. Why? EDIT - I am mainly talking about Dams and water storage.
- simoncion 11y ago
  I assume you're talking about water leakage? If you are, we're not talking about that because it's such a tiny number as to be irrelevant. "California receives a total of 80 million acre-feet of water per year. Of those, 23 million are stuck in wild rivers ... All urban water consumption totals 9 million acre-feet. Of those, 2.4 million are for commercial and industrial institutions, 3.8 million are for lawns, and 2.8 million are personal water use by average citizens in their houses. In case you’re wondering about this latter group, by my calculations all water faucets use 0.5 million, all toilets use 0.9 million, all showers use 0.5 million, leaks lose 0.3 million, and the remaining 0.6 million covers everything else – washing machines, dishwashers, et cetera." Via: http://slatestarcodex.com/2015/05/11/california-water-you-doing/ http://slatestarcodex.com/2015/05/11/california-water-you-do... which is a really good read.
- simoncion 11y ago
  To reply to your edit: Have you looked around to see what professional water management people have been saying about that very thing? I bet you a dollar that they've talked about that very thing several times. If you read that Slate Star Codex post (if you haven't, you should), you'll see that already we capture and use most of the water that we receive. But, for the heck of it, what water sources do you want to see captured, why, how much water do you expect to get out of that source, and what will be its impact on the rest of the ecosystem?
okigan 11y ago
strawberries produced in CA are cheaper to buy on markets in NY [1] [1] source, personal experience
yellowapple 11y ago
Sorry, but your comment is nonsense. I don't disagree with your conclusion (at least not entirely), but there are some facts that are in serious need of clarifying here. > Agriculture is using 80% of the water, but accounts for a mere 2% of the GDP (4% of employment) Even disregarding the fact that California's agricultural workforce is a smidge below half of California's total population [0] (which indicates that your "4% of employment" figure is incredibly misleading; I'm guessing you're comparing to national rather than state figures?), the article you cited actually agrees with my observation that a green lawn is far less important than, you know, food on tables, and concludes that the "80%" figure isn't going to be true for much longer as urban sprawl continues throughout California. (EDIT: it's also not clear that agriculture really does account for 80% of California's water use; while the data is probably outdated, California's agricultural water use was actually around 60% as of 2010 per the USGS [3].) > There's no reason we should be squeezing our rural and suburban centers that fuel the overwhelming majority of our economy It's pretty hard to fuel that economy without food. This isn't Star Trek; we don't have food replicators, and you're severely understating the sheer quantities of food that California's agricultural industry produces. Per the California Department of Food and Agriculture [1], California produces around half of all American fruits, vegetables, and nuts. Along with this, California (as of 2013; the CDFA hasn't published newer data yet AFAIK) is the sole producer (99% or more) in the nation of 14 crops (including almonds, olives, raisin grapes, and walnuts) and is the leading national producer of several dozen more [2, page 2]. Sure, Hollywood and Silicon Valley make a lot more money, but you're grossly underestimating how vital Californian agriculture is to the national and state economy, and money isn't everything here. So yeah, we can be more aggressive about cutting off agricultural water if you're willing to go without a lot of types of food (either due to being entirely nonexistent from domestic production or - more realistically - much more expensive). > Further, if the point is food production and not food profit for the nation then the focus should be on producing the most water efficient foods (per calorie) not the most profitable foods produced under an assumption of free or near free water. I agree with this, and hopefully farmers will continue to make crop selections based on water consumption. However, profitability is a pretty big economic motivator. Rice, despite being among the heaviest users of water, still netted California nearly $790 million with 25% of American rice having been grown in California [2, page 11], though these figures are apparently on the decline, probably because of the drought. Also, it's not quite accurate to say that the water is free. Even if the water itself is entirely free (which isn't always the case), a lot of farmers and ranchers (and other inhabitants of rural areas) are facing the prospect of having to redrill wells, which - if you're not aware - isn't cheap. The well at my old house was drilled with this possibility in mind: deep enough that, even with a drop in water, it can still pump. > The cost of the product should reflect the cost of the resources required to produce. This is not the current case. I take it you're not poor? Having grown up in a low-income household, I have a very hard time agreeing with this sort of attitude knowing that putting food on the table was hard enough as it was. This isn't to say that I disagree with you entirely here. I think there's room for something along the lines of a tax on crops that require large amounts of water or a tax break on crops that are less water-dependent, which would achieve what I'm guessing to be your intention without having such a broad negative impact on those in lower income brackets. ----- [0]: http://www.labormarketinfo.edd.ca.gov/?PAGEID=158 http://www.labormarketinfo.edd.ca.gov/?PAGEID=158 [1]: http://www.cdfa.ca.gov/Statistics/ http://www.cdfa.ca.gov/Statistics/ [2]: http://www.nass.usda.gov/Statistics_by_State/California/Publications/California_Ag_Statistics/2013cas-all.pdf http://www.nass.usda.gov/Statistics_by_State/California/Publ... [3]: http://ca.water.usgs.gov/water_use/2010-california-water-use.html http://ca.water.usgs.gov/water_use/2010-california-water-use...

by jkyle 11y ago

mc32 11y ago

Well, so long migrant workers. Thanks for your labor, but, having low skills, and no jobs in the fields because water is cut, time to face reality! There are lots of farm hands who'd be negatively affected. They are at the margins of society as it is.

jkyle 11y ago
Ideally, farmer's should be charged for water usage instead of water access. Many of the water rights mentioned in the article are access rights. Meaning they can pump and use as much as they want. Make inefficiency come with a cost and watch an entire new industry spring up around water efficiency. Water is a limited and precious resource. Prices should reflect that. Anything less is a subsidy padding the profits of industrial agriculture.
- mc32 11y ago
  Agreed. The whole system needs to be updated and optimized differently, at least optimized towards efficient water usage, relative to the crop. My objection is the vilification of farmers. I.e. Farmers use 80%! Yet we urbanites are the ones first asked to conserve! The framing is very questionable.
  - rjsw 11y ago
    Why make it relative to the crop ? If California is no longer the best place to grow particular things then grow them elsewhere.
  - jkyle 11y ago
    No vilification of farmers here. The reason it's absurd to squeeze urbanites is their a minor user of the resource. You simply can't solve the problem by reducing urban water usage. You should always look at inefficiencies in the 80% before you squeeze the 20%. And if the industry contracts a bit, it's not the end of the world or even a significant impact on the economy.
    - yellowapple 11y ago
      > You simply can't solve the problem by reducing urban water usage. You simply can't solve the problem by reducing rural water usage, either. The most feasible solution would be to build desalinization plants. California is a coastal state, and the majority of its population lives in cities located along said coast; pushing those urban centers to oceanic water will immediately free up that 20% of inland water usage, even more of which could be freed up by farms using oceanic water as well.
kansface 11y ago
Protecting inefficient industries from their own inefficiencies to save jobs is not a viable long term strategy. Besides, its not within the power of the government to create rain. Job training and relocation programs can help.

monochromatic 11y ago

Why is that a comparison that makes sense? If we doubled the water available to tech companies, that wouldn't make them any more productive.

jkyle 11y ago
We're literally running out of water [1]. As in no more. There are entire counties who get nothing when they turn on their faucets. Nothing. No more. Not to mention the ground is sinking. [1] http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-famiglietti-drought-california-20150313-story.html http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-famiglietti-droug...
- dirtae 11y ago
  Which entire counties get nothing when they turn on their faucets?
  - jkyle 11y ago
    Tulare ran out not too long ago.
    - dirtae 11y ago
      Visalia is the county seat of Tulare county. I cannot find any articles mentioning that people in Visalia get nothing when they turn on their faucets. Can you link me to a source?
    - millzlane 11y ago
      I found a link. I wasn't able to reply to the commenter below. http://sacramento.cbslocal.com/2015/04/30/california-a-state-of-survival/ http://sacramento.cbslocal.com/2015/04/30/california-a-state...
  - slayed0 11y ago
    edit: read that as countries, not counties India is getting there [1] [1]http://thewaterproject.org/water-in-crisis-india http://thewaterproject.org/water-in-crisis-india

WillPostForFood 11y ago

The primary contribution of agriculture is feeding people, not GDP. What does watering one's lawn contribute to?

dragonwriter 11y ago
> The primary contribution of agriculture is feeding people, not GDP. The primary value to California of exporting food (which is what most California agriculture is) is the economic activity produced. (Given a global food market with largely equivalent substitute goods, one could argue that the same is true of agriculture that is used for local consumption, as well.)
- WillPostForFood 11y ago
  You say GDP contribution to Californianis more important than supplying food to the state/country/world. I say feeding people and keeping food prices low is more important than that particular economic statistic when looking at the value of water consumption.
  - Kalium 11y ago
    The point being made here is not that feeding people and keeping food prices low isn't important. The point being made here is that California agriculture isn't required to feed people or keep food prices low.
  - jkyle 11y ago
    If this is your honest opinion, you'd be pushing for emergency triage of water allocation for agriculture. Specifically, reducing luxury crops like almonds, beef, and chicken. We could cut our water usage in 1/2 and still produce enough nutritious food for the entire nation plus some. This coming from someone who has favorite pass time of smoking brisket, ribs, and grilling steaks. It's just the facts.
    - yellowapple 11y ago

hn9780470248775 11y ago

What an inane comparison. You can't eat apps. Well, actually we can, in the same way we can "grow cars in Iowa" (to borrow an example from economist Steven Landsburg). But do we want to?

adventured 11y ago
It's not inane. Look up how much of California's water is exported to other countries in the form of agriculture products. See: China's consumption of the California almond crop.
jkyle 11y ago
CA is a major exporter of agriculture. It can grow enough food to supply itself even with aggressive curtailing of agricultural output. If CA cities start running out of water supply, businesses will be affected. The ones that carry our GDP. If you're implying that cutting back CA Ag production would be a national harm, then the nation needs to pull it together and help CA support the industry. But in the end, this is just simple math. You can't solve CA's water crisis by only targeting residential usage. It's simply not a big enough slice of the pie.
- yellowapple 11y ago
  It's not a bigger slice of the pie than agriculture, true, but it's a slice that's much easier to fix. This isn't to say that we shouldn't try to fix agricultural water consumption. Just that the calls to cut off agricultural water because "oh no they use 80% of the water" seem to reflect misplaced priorities.

mcsheffrey 11y ago

Cutting agricultural water usage doesn't just affect California. http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/explainer/2013/07/california_grows_all_of_our_fruits_and_vegetables_what_would_we_eat_without.html http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/explainer/2...

deleted 11y ago

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deleted 11y ago

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alexhu11 11y ago
What is a problem is selling taxpayer subsidized water to large corporate farmers in the middle of desert so that they can raise surplus crops while in the middle of the drought. Agriculture is fine. Subsidizing corporate behemoths in the Central Valley while wrecking our environment is not.
wwweston 11y ago
People usually bring up the GDP stuff not to criticize the fact that the US has managed to develop an national economy where most other sectors dwarf agriculture, but to pair two points: 1) California could afford to lose its agriculture sector 2) since water is increasingly scarce here, maybe the agriculture would be better done somewhere else too There's probably some counterarguments (even a 1% GDP contraction is going to hurt a bit and have some second-order effects, maybe trucking in food has its own problems, inertia in things like almond crops, I don't know), but we can probably stop short of accusing the people who bring it up of being critics of industrialization. :)
jfoutz 11y ago
Not at all. It's a marginal value question. When water is plentiful, people will find lots of uses for it beyond drinking it. For example, you can cook pasta with water - at the end of the cooking you just throw the water away. Water has been so inexpensive it makes sense to pour it right on to the ground to make plants grow. Now, water is getting a little harder to come by. It still makes sense to cook pasta with it, because very little is used. But perhaps it's not so useful to pour it on the ground for every type of plant. Perhaps there are certain strains or varieties that aren't quite so water intensive. I know this is true for tomatoes. So essentially you give up on the very water intensive kinds of plants, let the competition grow those where there is more water. That's a simplification, some things, like orchards take years and years to become productive. In those cases, perhaps it makes sense to pipe in water, desalinate ocean water, or whatever. Competition isn't going to pick up the slack, because it takes years and years to get productive. Food needs to be inexpensive, and readily available, subsidies absolutely make sense to make food inexpensive. But perhaps we don't need to subsidize quite as much of that 20% beyond the food we need.

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

chroncilinks 11y ago

4% of reported employment

chatmasta 11y ago

> usable water which is mainly used for exported profits and not sustaining local industries. When you say "exported" and "local" are you referring to California, or the United States? States need to be responsible for different resources, but as a whole, the United States must be self sufficient. No reasonable geopolitical strategy would require importing vital resources like food and wter.

shmulkey18 11y ago
When the Indian government implemented the strategy you suggest, it consigned the country to years of economic backwardness. "Self-sufficiency" is the road to poverty.
dragonwriter 11y ago
> States need to be responsible for different resources, but as a whole, the United States must be self sufficient. "Must be"? No. Perhaps it would be nice, but even that is questionable. > No reasonable geopolitical strategy would require importing vital resources like food and wter. "Only a Sith deals in absolutes." More to the point, a reasonable geopolitical strategy would do so if self-sufficiency was either unattainable, or merely had an opportunity costs that exceeded the strategic value. Anyhow, the US is a massive net food exporter; and if California cuts backs due to drought, that will make production elsewhere in the world -- including elsewhere in the US -- that would otherwise be economically marginal more viable. Even if self-sufficiency in food was essential, these cutbacks wouldn't threaten it. Anyway, these cutbacks are because there literally isn't water in the systems in which they hold rights to deliver to senior rights holders, not because farmers (which don't account for all the affected senior rights holders) are being politically targeted. Even if food self-sufficiency was a geopolitical strategic necessity, and even if curtailment would impact it, you can't deliver water that doesn't exist.

hyperbovine 11y ago

Some 30-80% (depending on the precipitation that year) of that 80% is pumped out of aquifers beneath the Central Valley and is not really available for urban use anyways. And it's not like urban users are blameless here. I mean, have you driven around Southern California? It shouldn't be the case that LA more closely resembles Miami than Phoenix.

intopieces 11y ago

The problem, though, is that the water taken up by agriculture and the water taken up by people in cities does not come from the same big bucket. A drop of water save by Ag doesn't equate to a drop of water that can be used in my shower. Infrastructure changes will have to happen and the 20% users will also have to make cuts.

simoncion 11y ago
[citation needed]

copsarebastards 11y ago

> Further, if the point is food production and not food profit for the nation then the focus should be on producing the most water efficient foods (per calorie) not the most profitable foods produced under an assumption of free or near free water. Wait, why are we measuring this per calorie? That's a terrible way to measure what should be produced. The US is still the fattest country in the world[1]. We don't need more calories, we need more nutrients. There are several measures of nutrient density[2]. Fats/sugars/proteins/alcohol (the things that contain calories) are macronutrients, so they are a component of nutrient density, but Americans are getting plenty of these. Optimizing incentives for calories would drive prices in a direction such that Americans will get even fatter. Let's not make this mistake. [1] http://www.worldobesity.org/site_media/library/resource_images/Overweight_and_obesity_in_Global_Adults_v2.pdf http://www.worldobesity.org/site_media/library/resource_imag... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nutrient_density https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nutrient_density EDIT: The popular discussion on this subject often centers around almonds, the comparison being that beef has a much higher calorie efficiency per water. If you look at nutrient density, almonds fare much better. EDIT 2: Australia has a standard for calculating nutrient density, which has been codified in the Nutrient Profiling Scoring Calculator (NPSC)[3]. [3] http://www.foodstandards.gov.au/industry/labelling/pages/nutrientprofilingcalculator/Default.aspx http://www.foodstandards.gov.au/industry/labelling/pages/nut...

graham1776 11y ago

Not one comment about water infrastructure? The great water technologies of the past fifty years have been completely ignored by the tech elite. Where does San Francisco get its water? It is crazy to me that we are proposing cutting back on water use when the real problem is a huge portion of the water we have is not being used effectively. We would not be having this discussion about power, sewer, gas or any other utility, but for some reason we see no value in capturing and retaining this resource. Why? EDIT - I am mainly talking about Dams and water storage.

simoncion 11y ago
I assume you're talking about water leakage? If you are, we're not talking about that because it's such a tiny number as to be irrelevant. "California receives a total of 80 million acre-feet of water per year. Of those, 23 million are stuck in wild rivers ... All urban water consumption totals 9 million acre-feet. Of those, 2.4 million are for commercial and industrial institutions, 3.8 million are for lawns, and 2.8 million are personal water use by average citizens in their houses. In case you’re wondering about this latter group, by my calculations all water faucets use 0.5 million, all toilets use 0.9 million, all showers use 0.5 million, leaks lose 0.3 million, and the remaining 0.6 million covers everything else – washing machines, dishwashers, et cetera." Via: http://slatestarcodex.com/2015/05/11/california-water-you-doing/ http://slatestarcodex.com/2015/05/11/california-water-you-do... which is a really good read.
simoncion 11y ago
To reply to your edit: Have you looked around to see what professional water management people have been saying about that very thing? I bet you a dollar that they've talked about that very thing several times. If you read that Slate Star Codex post (if you haven't, you should), you'll see that already we capture and use most of the water that we receive. But, for the heck of it, what water sources do you want to see captured, why, how much water do you expect to get out of that source, and what will be its impact on the rest of the ecosystem?

okigan 11y ago

strawberries produced in CA are cheaper to buy on markets in NY [1] [1] source, personal experience

yellowapple 11y ago

Sorry, but your comment is nonsense. I don't disagree with your conclusion (at least not entirely), but there are some facts that are in serious need of clarifying here. > Agriculture is using 80% of the water, but accounts for a mere 2% of the GDP (4% of employment) Even disregarding the fact that California's agricultural workforce is a smidge below half of California's total population [0] (which indicates that your "4% of employment" figure is incredibly misleading; I'm guessing you're comparing to national rather than state figures?), the article you cited actually agrees with my observation that a green lawn is far less important than, you know, food on tables, and concludes that the "80%" figure isn't going to be true for much longer as urban sprawl continues throughout California. (EDIT: it's also not clear that agriculture really does account for 80% of California's water use; while the data is probably outdated, California's agricultural water use was actually around 60% as of 2010 per the USGS [3].) > There's no reason we should be squeezing our rural and suburban centers that fuel the overwhelming majority of our economy It's pretty hard to fuel that economy without food. This isn't Star Trek; we don't have food replicators, and you're severely understating the sheer quantities of food that California's agricultural industry produces. Per the California Department of Food and Agriculture [1], California produces around half of all American fruits, vegetables, and nuts. Along with this, California (as of 2013; the CDFA hasn't published newer data yet AFAIK) is the sole producer (99% or more) in the nation of 14 crops (including almonds, olives, raisin grapes, and walnuts) and is the leading national producer of several dozen more [2, page 2]. Sure, Hollywood and Silicon Valley make a lot more money, but you're grossly underestimating how vital Californian agriculture is to the national and state economy, and money isn't everything here. So yeah, we can be more aggressive about cutting off agricultural water if you're willing to go without a lot of types of food (either due to being entirely nonexistent from domestic production or - more realistically - much more expensive). > Further, if the point is food production and not food profit for the nation then the focus should be on producing the most water efficient foods (per calorie) not the most profitable foods produced under an assumption of free or near free water. I agree with this, and hopefully farmers will continue to make crop selections based on water consumption. However, profitability is a pretty big economic motivator. Rice, despite being among the heaviest users of water, still netted California nearly $790 million with 25% of American rice having been grown in California [2, page 11], though these figures are apparently on the decline, probably because of the drought. Also, it's not quite accurate to say that the water is free. Even if the water itself is entirely free (which isn't always the case), a lot of farmers and ranchers (and other inhabitants of rural areas) are facing the prospect of having to redrill wells, which - if you're not aware - isn't cheap. The well at my old house was drilled with this possibility in mind: deep enough that, even with a drop in water, it can still pump. > The cost of the product should reflect the cost of the resources required to produce. This is not the current case. I take it you're not poor? Having grown up in a low-income household, I have a very hard time agreeing with this sort of attitude knowing that putting food on the table was hard enough as it was. This isn't to say that I disagree with you entirely here. I think there's room for something along the lines of a tax on crops that require large amounts of water or a tax break on crops that are less water-dependent, which would achieve what I'm guessing to be your intention without having such a broad negative impact on those in lower income brackets. ----- [0]: http://www.labormarketinfo.edd.ca.gov/?PAGEID=158 http://www.labormarketinfo.edd.ca.gov/?PAGEID=158 [1]: http://www.cdfa.ca.gov/Statistics/ http://www.cdfa.ca.gov/Statistics/ [2]: http://www.nass.usda.gov/Statistics_by_State/California/Publications/California_Ag_Statistics/2013cas-all.pdf http://www.nass.usda.gov/Statistics_by_State/California/Publ... [3]: http://ca.water.usgs.gov/water_use/2010-california-water-use.html http://ca.water.usgs.gov/water_use/2010-california-water-use...