Amid Drought, Selfish Cali Farmers are Stealing Water

[Timsup2nothin]

Yeah, that's a problem for marketing/sales/administration though, not development. I took your "game developers" to be referring to to actual developers, not game companies.

No prob... Given the context of "farmers" there is a natural sense of individuals, but I was looking at the economic enterprises. The "fourth generation almond farmer" is actually a business with a bunch of people involved, it's just that it has four generations of history in it that make it a much more significant player in the almond business than it would be in cabbages.

Though to get picky, I doubt that if Bethesda were suddenly forced into the world of control systems their programmers would be able to take the "oh the modders will fix it" approach to coding that they apparently take.

 

[Farm Boy]

Infrastructure is an issue. Even if you convert all your equipment to plant something new(and re-tooling your entire enterprise to buy new equipment can be really really expensive), the something new grows well where you are, and there is a market for it as well, you gotta find buyers. And you gotta get what you're selling to buyers. Around here, there are elevators that will buy corn and soybeans. They'll then truck your crop to the Mississippi. They'll deduct their price of shipment to the river off of what they'll pay you in the first place(this is call the basis). If you are growing fresh vegetables around here, we'll call the "truck crops," you gotta find somebody who'll buy those crops and you probably have to ship them to where they're buying. Not particularly cheap when you realize it costs you not only time but fuel, factoring in that vegetables aren't exactly value-dense commodities.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

I doubt there is an almond grower who has even looked for a buyer in living memory. Renegotiated? Sure. Actually sought a new buyer? I'd bet against it.

 

[Agent327]

Did you even bother to read the post you think you're commenting on?

 

[Farm Boy]

It's a relevant response. Buyers are tricky. So take that organic tomato/microgreen farmer I mentioned earlier. She planted her tomatoes with the expectation of providing them to her buyer, investing land, inputs, and labor well in advance. They contracted her well in advance of their needs. Months later, there is simply no significant amount of tomatoes because of weather variation. If you're one person dropping off produce at Large Corp Incorporated, then the only person who cares is the farmer. But in this instance not only is she hosed this year, her buyer is hosed this year and now needs to re-source. It takes a specific sort of buyer to maintain relationships with farmers like this in any number. People in business don't like the uncertainty. Farmers markets are tremendous labor investments for what are still very niche, very local, very small scale marketing rewards. Stores and restaurants are the contracts you want to be supplying. Don't underestimate the free market appeal of consistency in irrigated desert. Time not spent scrabbling to market is time spent refining and maintaining other parts of the enterprise. Good years can't even out the bad years if unexpected high yields rot for lack of customers. Generalization is a competitive cost too.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Did you even bother to read the post you think you're commenting on?

Yes. Why do you ask?

 

[onejayhawk]

Were not most farm programs designed to shelter growers from the worst vagaries of weather?

J

 

[Farm Boy]

And when you realize that the crops grown in such areas tend to be the ones with subsidized crop insurance it makes more sense. Then when you realize that most of the crops people whine about not being subsidized(since they're healthy!) are grown under artificial rainfall in low-variance weather environments... but that's hard to get across. Plus it's not true 100% of the time. Michigan apples and whatnot.

But either way, at the end of the day you can still get crushed by the weather. Farm programs are designed to shelter growers from the worst some vagaries of weather. If you want to look at it that way. What they're really there for is to ensure a steady and non-volatile supply of foodstuffs to the end consumers. Which dictates ensuring that supply shortfalls of key goods in consumption are not common. IE, perpetually aiming for oversupply rather than right-one-target-hit-or-miss.

 

[onejayhawk]

An oversupply of food is better than a shortfall. This is politics 101.

J

 

[FriendlyFire]

The issue I have there is that we once again come back to forcing the farmers to bear the costs of finding a way to use less water so that developers can turn more worthless land into valuable property and reap the profits. If the water is going to be turned into profit, the costs of making the water available should be borne by those who are going to profit, don't you think?

That is true, the government has subsidies water by about 90% for farming and then for the next 60 years farming industry was built on cheap water. Thus the wasteful agriculture practices and wasteful water usages.
Expensive drip irrigation would save massive amounts of water, but it is currently not economic for farmers to do so.

what you have in effect of all this is government is subsidizing food at the cost of the enviroment, something has to change or the system will just break down.
At least US is a first world country suited technologically and economically able to correcting this problem before it gets to that stage

 

[Timsup2nothin]

I am now officially benefiting from the drought.

My gf had a busted sprinkler, so off I go to Home Depot. The sprinkler stuff aisle is literally clogged with people. Listening to the HD guy trying to answer questions for a moment or two, I realize that the local water district has lowered delivery pressure...which I sort of already knew, having noticed in the shower.

So all these people are there flailing about because their sprinkler systems have too many sprinklers on the line for the new lower pressure to operate properly. I signed up five people for troubleshoot and repair jobs in about ten minutes. It's a gold mine.

 

[Quintillus]

There was an article in my (midwestern, no-draught-anywhere-nearby) newspaper about the California draught today. The striking statistic was that, while California is seeking to reduce urban water usage by 25%, 80% of the state's water use is agricultural. By Amdahl's Law, they're focusing on the wrong area to reduce water usage. Even if they achieve their goal, it's a 4% difference, whereas they could achieve the same by reducing agricultural usage by only 5%.

My impression is that too many water-inefficient crops, such as alfalfa and almonds, are being grown for the environmental conditions. Alfalfa in particular seems an odd choice, given that most of it is exported outside of North America. In a draught-stricken state, why not let the areas that consume that alfalfa expend their own water on growing it? Probably the farming lobby, but from a distance it seems pretty obvious that the only effective way of navigating the draught will be to reduce agricultural water usage. Maybe that means charging more so that the most water-inefficient farmers will be forced to switch to other crops, but something has to give.

The previous week, the local Midwestern newspaper had an article on desalination plants in California. That's the other option. Expensive, yes, but necessary if demand doesn't slacken. The good news is desal options have become much less electricity-intensive over the years.

Come to think of it, it's probably not a good sign for California that a local newspaper in the midwest with somewhat poor national news coverage has had articles on their water shortage two weeks in a row.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

There was an article in my (midwestern, no-draught-anywhere-nearby) newspaper about the California draught today. The striking statistic was that, while California is seeking to reduce urban water usage by 25%, 80% of the state's water use is agricultural. By Amdahl's Law, they're focusing on the wrong area to reduce water usage. Even if they achieve their goal, it's a 4% difference, whereas they could achieve the same by reducing agricultural usage by only 5%.

My impression is that too many water-inefficient crops, such as alfalfa and almonds, are being grown for the environmental conditions. Alfalfa in particular seems an odd choice, given that most of it is exported outside of North America. In a draught-stricken state, why not let the areas that consume that alfalfa expend their own water on growing it? Probably the farming lobby, but from a distance it seems pretty obvious that the only effective way of navigating the draught will be to reduce agricultural water usage. Maybe that means charging more so that the most water-inefficient farmers will be forced to switch to other crops, but something has to give.

The previous week, the local Midwestern newspaper had an article on desalination plants in California. That's the other option. Expensive, yes, but necessary if demand doesn't slacken. The good news is desal options have become much less electricity-intensive over the years.

Come to think of it, it's probably not a good sign for California that a local newspaper in the midwest with somewhat poor national news coverage has had articles on their water shortage two weeks in a row.

While logic dictates that reductions targeting agriculture are the obvious solution, they don't address the problem that agricultural consumption has been a constant while the residential use is what has grown until it caused a problem and it continues to grow basically unchecked. Any reduction in agricultural use would just be redirected and consumed anyway, so there really is no point.

 

[El_Machinae]

I'm hesitant to believe that agricultural use has remained constant without seeing some analysis.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

I'm hesitant to believe that agricultural use has remained constant without seeing some analysis.

It probably hasn't. But the fact remains that agriculture isn't a significant growth industry (pardon the pun) in California. There are not huge tracts of desert being put to the plow as we speak. There are, however, huge tracts of desert 'blooming' with residential development. So the primary source of demand growth, which has led to demand exceeding supply and is still on going, is residential development.

 

[El_Machinae]

I'm pretty sure demand has exceeded supply for quite a long time, and that people were just draining their inheritance as if it were free.

 

[Farm Boy]

In the land of "problems people pay attention to" farmers readjusting their crops doesn't register except as a low level whine about organic/legacy strains vs. evil/hybridized/droughresistant strains. But the poor people forgoing extra showers and dealing with browner lawns demanding that they be allowed to steal/readjust water rights registers. Now we actually have a problem.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

I'm pretty sure demand has exceeded supply for quite a long time, and that people were just draining their inheritance as if it were free.

Water table has not dropped significantly in my valley over the long term, though it is undoubtedly dropping now. We are certainly past the point where demand exceeds supply in a low precipitation year, and probably past the point where demand exceeds supply in an average year.

That doesn't change the fact that we are on course for demand exceeding supply every year, and that the source of increasing demand is predominantly continuing residential development. Attacking agriculture because it is the largest demand while turning a blind eye to the source of increasing demand is disingenuous, probably to the point of dangerous.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

In the land of "problems people pay attention to" farmers readjusting their crops doesn't register except as a low level whine about organic/legacy strains vs. evil/hybridized/droughresistant strains. But the poor people forgoing extra showers and dealing with browner lawns demanding that they be allowed to steal/readjust water rights registers. Now we actually have a problem.

Nah. We only really have a problem when the developer is told "no, you cannot buy up a few square miles of worthless desert and turn it into valuable residential property at tremendous profit margins, and then say providing water to it in the long term is not your problem." That developer has more voice than all the poor dirty people with brown lawns put together.

 

[Farm Boy]

Then just cycle the developments. Put in a new neighborhood at a premium and cut affordable service to another area. Gentrification on crack. Oh wait, the farmers, right, that's already what's going to be happening.