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Water is a scarce resource in this case. You don't exactly let the "wealthy" buy off everything they can just because. Scarce resources need to be regulated my friend.
Regulation is where scarce resources go to die. Why not find a way to produce more?
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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-droug...
Which entire counties get nothing when they turn on their faucets?
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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.
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.
One solution is technology. Trap evaporated water and recycle it. Invest in high performance hydroponics. There are so many solutions to flood farming that no one bothers to invest in because the water is essentially free to them.
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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.
Water is a scarce resource in this case. You don't exactly let the "wealthy" buy off everything they can just because. Scarce resources need to be regulated my friend.
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?
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Not to mention the pollution issues impacting fisheries and coastlines.
This is the easily the best proposal I have heard but it stands no chance of passing. Paying farmers in the desert to not grow crops is ... unamerican.
[1] """I realize that paying people subsidies to misuse water to grow unprofitable crops, and then offering them countersubsidies to not take your first set of subsidies, is to say the least a very creative way to spend government money – but the point is it is better than what we’re doing now."""
http://slatestarcodex.com/2015/05/11/california-water-you-do...
[2] """His [Major Major’s father] specialty was alfalfa, and he made a good thing out of not growing any. The government paid him well for every bushel of alfalfa he did not grow. The more alfalfa he did not grow, the more money the government gave him, and he spent every penny he didn’t earn on new land to increase the amount of alfalfa he did not produce"""
Of course, we can't implement the obvious and economically rational solution: let the water market operate freely, rather than having the government dictate prices, impose rationing, encourage neighbors to rat out putative "water wasters" and so on. Long live central planning!
Water, air, these belong to the commons and should be allocated and used primarily for the sustenance and benefit of the commons. Not private industry.
[1] http://www.desertsun.com/story/news/2015/03/05/bottling-wate...
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/…
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.