| | | I suspect we won't change water distribution until we run out. (We did "run out", and distribution changed during the drought). Ag consumes something like 80% of the water. The thing of it is, food is a drug, and we're the biggest dealer in the country; we even sell to the rest of the world. This is just The Valley. It doesn't include alfalfa and strawberries from the Imperial Valley, or lettuce from the Salinas Valley.
More than 250 different crops are grown in the Central Valley with an estimated value of $17 billion per year
Approximately 75% of the irrigated land in California and 17% of the Nation's irrigated land is in the Central Valley
Using fewer than 1% of U.S. farmland, the Central Valley supplies 8% of U.S. agricultural output (by value) and produces 1/4 of the Nation's food, including 40% of the Nation's fruits, nuts, and other table foods.
The predominate crop types are cereal grains, hay, cotton, tomatoes, vegetables, citrus, tree fruits, nuts, table grapes, and wine grapes.
ca.water.usgs.gov.
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There's still savings to be wrung out. As recently as '16, about 40% of crops were flood irrigated. There will be a shift away from the highest water consumers. fruitgrowers.com There will be more greenhouse growing; these people claim to use 90% less water to grow lettuce.
markets.businessinsider.com
But... what happens to all the birds and the bees when everything is indoors? |
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