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California Announces Restrictions on Water Use by Farmers

nytimes.com

91–100 of 222 posts

Re: California Announces Restrictions on Water Use by Farmers

#91
post #62

Why can't we just have a 2 tier water pricing system? Tier 1 is very cheap, so that everyone can afford water to drink and wash themselves. Anything over that amount in tier 1 get's priced at something more realistic. That incentivizes industry to be economic about their water usage and private people are deterred from being wasteful.

I feel like such a pricing system would spell the end of water fountains (in parks, malls, stores, and whatnot).

These are luxuries we can go without in a drought.

Re: California Announces Restrictions on Water Use by Farmers

#92

Can someone explain to me why we don't just build a pipeline from Seattle or some rich water source up north down to California?

Seattle isn't actually that rainy, it's just a constant drizzle, actually. Water restrictions about on the summer also.

If you want to see how it is done, China recently built a north south water diversion canal. Though it hasn't paid off yet.

Re: California Announces Restrictions on Water Use by Farmers

#93
post #50
post #8

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/…

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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. :)

Re: California Announces Restrictions on Water Use by Farmers

#94
post #36
post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

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.

Why make it relative to the crop ? If California is no longer the best place to grow particular things then grow them elsewhere.

Re: California Announces Restrictions on Water Use by Farmers

#95
post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You simply don't understand the scale of the water we use. > At home one can cut showers from 15 mins down to 5 or two. On the farm it means not planting x acres that year. Urban direct water usage (ie., showers, watering lawns, flushing the toilet, etc) only accounts for 4% of the State water budget. FOUR PERCENT. [0] Cutting your shower from 15 mins to 5 is utterly meaningless compared to agricultural use. [0] PDF…

Parent's point is simply that in the home you can drastically cut water usage without it affecting your life much, but in farming the consequences are large.

Which is cut against by the affect that cutting urban water usage just doesn't matter.

You could cut it to zero. We would run out of water in the same amount of time.

Re: California Announces Restrictions on Water Use by Farmers

#96
post #8

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/…

> 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.

> 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.

Re: California Announces Restrictions on Water Use by Farmers

#97
post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point is watering your lawn is a drop in the giant reservoir. If only 20% of the water is being used by residents (in reality, it's a bit less) and you pass super aggressive water conservation laws targeting residential use such that it's reduced by 50% then you've conserved a whopping..... 10% In contrast, a mere 12% increase in agriculture efficiency gets you the same win. Targeting residents to curb the water…

Sure, but you were touting GDP as the way to target water reduction, which doesn't make sense. I agree water should be priced based on supply, which would bring more efficiency to use in farming, lawns, or whatever.

You misunderstood me. I updated with an edit to clarify in the original post.

GDP is mentioned to show that increased cost of production for agriculture will not have a catastrophic effect on our economy....if you ask most Californians (or others), they often think agriculture is a huge proportion of our economy and requiring water efficiency would have a huge negative impact on our bottom line. Lost jobs, revenue, etc.

Re: California Announces Restrictions on Water Use by Farmers

#98
post #72
post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which entire counties get nothing when they turn on their faucets?

Tulare ran out not too long 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?

Re: California Announces Restrictions on Water Use by Farmers

#99
post #50
post #8

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/…

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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.

Re: California Announces Restrictions on Water Use by Farmers

#100
post #34

I recently read East of Eden, and even though it was written about 19th century California, some topics resonated very well today. This quote, in particular: "And it never failed that during the dry years the people forgot about the rich years, and during the wet years they lost all memory of the dry years. It was always that way."

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