I didn't say it would be uneconomical to grow them....just more expensive to buy them.
Its only relatively cheap to buy water intensive agricultural products from this valley now, because they are indirectly subsidized. I'd prefer to buyers to pay the real cost. For less water intensive products, and/or products that are high margin the difference won't be a big deal. For low margin, water intensive products it probably would make more sense to grow them elsewhere (even if there is no other place they can be grown in the US, which probably isn't the case for most of these products, you can always import them)
More than a bit....the rains stop in April and don't resume until Oct. Irrigated water is absolutely necessary during those intervening months.
I never said "lets outlaw irrigation". I said that they should pay the real price for the water, esp. in the context of water shortages.
Again, there is no rain from April to October. Even a fairly drought tolerant plant like grapes which thrive in Med. climates needs some water.
"Some water" doesn't have to be massively expensive, esp. if you use it efficiently (reducing the amount used), and the product is high margin like quality wine (reducing the percentage of the cost represented by the water).
The state accounts for nearly the entire U.S. production of walnuts, almonds, nectarines, olives, dates, figs...
Still you exaggerate. All of those products put together aren't as important to our economy as oil. Many of them could be grown elsewhere in the US, and might be if the valley didn't get the subsidies it gets.
Also the larger amount of stuff that is grown there, than the larger the subsidy (not directly, its not a subsidy for growing things, but grow more and you use more water, all else being equal). Either the products can still be produced profitably and sold at a price the market will accept even with the growers accepting the real price or they can't. If they can, then there is no huge loss. If they can't, well that growing them there IS a huge loss, and the growers are only profitable because they get subsidized, not because they are producing products that are worth more than the sum of their inputs.
I bet a lot of the products grown there continue to be grown there even if you remove the subsidies. Perhaps a few of the lowest margin, most water intensive crops would not be, and a few more would be noticeably reduced, but for most of them the main effect would be continued production but with the real costs allocated to those who incur the costs. Depending on the elasticity of the market either consumers or the producers would lose a bit (probably they would both lose a bit), but than you solve the water shortage problem.
In many cases you wouldn't have the growers grow less to use less water, or use the same and pay more for it. Instead they would invest in highly efficient systems to minimize water use. What's so awful about that? |
