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World's Largest Water Diversion Plan Won't Quench China's Thirst

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Re: World's Largest Water Diversion Plan Won't Quench China's Thirst

#21

Post by Retric »

danmaz74 wrote: post #17
nshepperd wrote: post #9

> Still, in many cases there’s little incentive for farmers to save water. Agriculture uses 62 percent of China’s water, but crops have a relatively low marginal value. So the government bans the sale of agricultural water to industry, which pays 10 times the price, to ensure food supply. This discount on water is effectively a cash subsidy for agriculture that increases with the amount of water wasted instead of use…

Did it ever occur to you that pricing hundreds of millions of poor Chinese farmers out of their ability to grow food to eat, so that much richer exporting industries can have more water, while being a "market solution", might not be an acceptable - even a humane - solution?

Depends on the implication. If you supplied the same water in the same way then allowed resale farmers would strictly be better off. (Ignoring graft.)

The water shortage will not take hundreds of millions of farmers to equalize. Price rises by 0.01 cents per gallon and many farmers will will become more water efficient while selling freed up water on the open market. This, assuming some water vs trade off, would also raise food prices giving more money to farmers who do nothing differently.

The poor and everyone else would get higher food prices, but access to more reliable sources of water.

Re: World's Largest Water Diversion Plan Won't Quench China's Thirst

#22

Post by spodek »

Dozens of high-tech and massive public works solutions.

None address the root problem: population growth. Globally, not just in China.

Everyone will knee-jerk respond about their one-child policy. It doesn't change that population growth is the root problem and all the other solutions only enable more population.

The article doesn't even suggest the possibility of lowering the birth rate. It's long past time we put the topic back into civil discourse.

Re: World's Largest Water Diversion Plan Won't Quench China's Thirst

#23

Post by posterboy »

nshepperd wrote: post #9

> Still, in many cases there’s little incentive for farmers to save water. Agriculture uses 62 percent of China’s water, but crops have a relatively low marginal value. So the government bans the sale of agricultural water to industry, which pays 10 times the price, to ensure food supply. This discount on water is effectively a cash subsidy for agriculture that increases with the amount of water wasted instead of use…

you are talking about the current value as offered by the industry, but the actual value it will have down the line is not messured in monetary terms. Or at least, if you think money were happinies, you argue for inflation. Differential equations are often used to model dynamic systems. What you mention is only one first order solution to a partial deq only (ok, i'm pretending, sew me), implying a linear relation, but you omit the other dimension. Who is going to buy from the industry, in case the inflation rises to the point of starving most of the country? Point being, this is not as simple as you imply, by a long shot.

Re: World's Largest Water Diversion Plan Won't Quench China's Thirst

#24

Post by golergka »

danmaz74 wrote: post #17
nshepperd wrote: post #9

> Still, in many cases there’s little incentive for farmers to save water. Agriculture uses 62 percent of China’s water, but crops have a relatively low marginal value. So the government bans the sale of agricultural water to industry, which pays 10 times the price, to ensure food supply. This discount on water is effectively a cash subsidy for agriculture that increases with the amount of water wasted instead of use…

Did it ever occur to you that pricing hundreds of millions of poor Chinese farmers out of their ability to grow food to eat, so that much richer exporting industries can have more water, while being a "market solution", might not be an acceptable - even a humane - solution?

If richer exporting industries are richer than hundreds of millions farmers, doesn't it mean that they are more effective, and may be a large industrial farm would be more effective than individual farmers, too?

Re: World's Largest Water Diversion Plan Won't Quench China's Thirst

#25

Post by Lazare »

danmaz74 wrote: post #17
nshepperd wrote: post #9

> Still, in many cases there’s little incentive for farmers to save water. Agriculture uses 62 percent of China’s water, but crops have a relatively low marginal value. So the government bans the sale of agricultural water to industry, which pays 10 times the price, to ensure food supply. This discount on water is effectively a cash subsidy for agriculture that increases with the amount of water wasted instead of use…

Did it ever occur to you that pricing hundreds of millions of poor Chinese farmers out of their ability to grow food to eat, so that much richer exporting industries can have more water, while being a "market solution", might not be an acceptable - even a humane - solution?

Did it ever occur to you that a cash subsidy might be a lot more acceptable and humane answer that the current water subsidy?

You're framing this as a question of "should we give these peasants free water, OR just let them starve?" That's not what's being debated, and is disingenuous at best.

Re: World's Largest Water Diversion Plan Won't Quench China's Thirst

#26

Post by lancebeet »

spodek wrote: post #22

Dozens of high-tech and massive public works solutions. None address the root problem: population growth. Globally, not just in China. Everyone will knee-jerk respond about their one-child policy. It doesn't change that population growth is the root problem and all the other solutions only enable more population. The article doesn't even suggest the possibility of lowering the birth rate. It's long past time we put t…

The fertility rate in China is currently 1.57, well below the replacement fertility rate of 2.1. In fact, fertility rates are below replacement rates or rapidly declining nearly everywhere, even in places like India where the fertility rate will almost certainly reach sub-replacement levels in a decade. Africa is the only region that doesn't show this pattern.

Re: World's Largest Water Diversion Plan Won't Quench China's Thirst

#27

Post by sremani »

spodek wrote: post #22

Dozens of high-tech and massive public works solutions. None address the root problem: population growth. Globally, not just in China. Everyone will knee-jerk respond about their one-child policy. It doesn't change that population growth is the root problem and all the other solutions only enable more population. The article doesn't even suggest the possibility of lowering the birth rate. It's long past time we put t…

No, population growth is not the biggest problem for China, the median age of China is about 38 years old, their growth has already petered out. The population growth problem is right now mostly Africa and South Asia.

China already has less than replacement ration (2.1) child births, what do you want ? People to not have children?

Re: World's Largest Water Diversion Plan Won't Quench China's Thirst

#28

Post by pas »

freeone3000 wrote: post #10
nshepperd wrote: post #9

> Still, in many cases there’s little incentive for farmers to save water. Agriculture uses 62 percent of China’s water, but crops have a relatively low marginal value. So the government bans the sale of agricultural water to industry, which pays 10 times the price, to ensure food supply. This discount on water is effectively a cash subsidy for agriculture that increases with the amount of water wasted instead of use…

Your inclusion of a city residential area is problematic. Selling water at the price it is actually worth would increase the price of necessities for humans. Differential billing by amount consumed is already a thing. Use restrictions are a stop-gap measure to conserve water when you wouldn't trigger the higher price due to high consumption. Our water security solution should not stop us from growing food. Increasing…

No, we want water efficiency. Agriculture has access to cheap water, thus no incentive (nor the economic ability to invest for equipment) to conserve it.

If they would get water at the normal price, their goods would all increase in price, but from a higher price with the same profit margin they'll be able to save for water saving technologies, which will allow them to increase their margin further (or offer lower prices - as eventually everyone will invest in water conservation methods).

And then cities will have more water and food will cost a bit more.

Re: World's Largest Water Diversion Plan Won't Quench China's Thirst

#29

Post by throw2016 »

WalterBright wrote: post #20
raverbashing wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While subsidies might be incentivizing waste, this is better than the alternative, which is not having enough food. The "free market" solution to take food out of people's table is a very good way to have some politicians at the gallows in no time (see Arab Spring)

> The "free market" solution Free market agriculture has been far more successful at eliminating hunger than any other system.

Every country heavily subsidizes and protects their agriculture market.

There is no free market in agriculture.

World hunger has not been 'solved' and any success cannot simply be credited to 'free markets' for a such a large scale complex human social problem.

Re: World's Largest Water Diversion Plan Won't Quench China's Thirst

#30

Post by LeifCarrotson »

golergka wrote: post #24
danmaz74 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did it ever occur to you that pricing hundreds of millions of poor Chinese farmers out of their ability to grow food to eat, so that much richer exporting industries can have more water, while being a "market solution", might not be an acceptable - even a humane - solution?

If richer exporting industries are richer than hundreds of millions farmers, doesn't it mean that they are more effective, and may be a large industrial farm would be more effective than individual farmers, too?

It does, and it would, but what are you going to do with those 100 million farmers? Their children are rushing to the cities faster than you can possibly imagine. But it takes at least a generation or two to change a country of poor farmers into an industrial, educated, urbanized society. And until then, you have this problem.
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