That seems rather complicated. It might be easier to simply put an extra tax on alfalfa sales of say, 500%.
at least you can eat almonds and they provide protein.
you canât eat wine, it isnât a food source, yet i havenât heard anyone suggest california stop producing wine, because people want their cheap wine and are are willing to throw a nut under the bus to keep it.
when talking about end product water usage required to grow and product/manufacture a food that you find on your table, almonds arenât that high on the list. they have become a focal point scapegoat for people not considering the entire picture.
Seriously, check this out and plug in different foods:
You can see exactly how much water each meal takes⌠almonds are actually quite a good trade off when you weigh food quality versus water used, not to mention that the hulls are fed to livestock so they are pulling double duty as a crop.
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Iâm too lazy to click the link and find outâŚ
Does that gallons per ounce of food thing give you choices on how the food was raised or is it just a general number based on the most widespread farming/ranching practices? IE, all meats are from CAFOs and all plants are from monoculture growing systems?
Donât mess with crops that alter peoples state of mind! Just imagine all those OC soccer moms trying to drive around without their mid-morning wine fix! It will be madness I tell you!
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Iâd recommend skipping this article and read the one linked under âFarmers are already getting squeezedâ- itâs a good, compelling read from the farmersâ point of view. And provides a little more illumination and nuance than âCarly Fiona is a big poopy head because she was on Glen Beck and Rush Limbaugh agrees with herâ.
And that is literally the basis of macroeconomics. I think China should bear the costs of the negative externalities of using Californiaâs water. But that concept is way over the heads of the foodies who are having their latest hair-on-fire rage-gasms over almonds of all things.
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They are averages, so somewhere in the middle between best and worst.
We IMPORT far more food much more cheaply from China then the amount of food we export to them. We have a massive NET gain. Macroeconomics explains precisely how the system already works and works in our favor. It is a LOT more complicated then simply charging the Chinese more for almonds, and even if they would pay that does NOTHING to resolve the water issues. So while I get your pointâŚmacroeconomics is kinda why this is affecting us so much, if California only grew what Californians ate, there would be plenty of water still for that even with the drought conditions, but really they are one of the major âbread-basketsâ of the world, and we donât want that to stop for humanities sake.
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Much of the infrastructure is designed to deal with floods, which is why nearly every action movie set in LA features a bone-dry flood control project at some point. And it appears that the Central Valley gets regular âARkstormsâ that turn it into an inland sea.
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Yep, macroeconomics creates all sorts of situations where countries import and export the oddest things. For people to hate almonds is one of those âThatâs not right, itâs not even wrongâ scenarios.
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Some of us are very seriously considering it.
Except I donât want to live somewhere with snow.
Or hurricanes.
Or tornadoes.
Or too much rain.
Crap.
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Yeah, I partly have my current gig as a way to not have to relocate out of Seattle. It isnât like I have anything against moving just that I did my time in the midwest already and I just would rather not move back to that if at all possible.
what blows my noggin, is when one factors the concepts of virtual imports/exports into the mix.
what makes me sad is factoring in wealth distribution, debt impact, and global corporations/banks into the equation. a lot of countries getting majorly screwed, and their peoples feeling the impact of a pretty messed up global economy, imho. 
(oh and cool info on the flood, that was a very interesting read! thx)
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But wouldnât it be simplest just to raise the cost of water to reflect its scarcity and allow the market price of the crops grown with that water to rise accordingly? The only reason China buys so much stuff grown in California is that weâve externalized the costs of water use. If that means certain crops are no longer economical, so be it.
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Yes, and remember: The flood of 1861-62 immediately preceded the terrible drought of the mid-1860s - but it keeps its crown as âthe worst SoCal flood ever in recorded historyâ (again, often overlooked due to spotty rainfall records, butâŚ).
If it were to repeat, it wouldnât be nearly as much of a disaster - but it would still overwhelm some of our flood-control network.
Itâs also worth remembering that ârecorded historyâ around here for weather purposes only goes back 130-150 years or so. We have tree-ring records which seem to indicate that both longer droughts and more extreme flood have happened in our past.
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Does it seem odd to anyone that the LAtimes infographic suggests pulses lentils and chickpeas have a water use ascribed to be not far off lamb and beef??
When these are traditional dry land (Mediterranean, middle eastern) crops?
Obvious bias, but this suggests a huge difference in water use for Beef versus pulses:
Hoekstra, A.Y. and Chapagain, A. 2008. Globalization of Water: Sharing the Planetâs Freshwater Resources. Wiley-Blackwell.
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It would make more sense to move agricultural production to other states.
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That does it. I swear to forgo all lentils in my diet in favor of beer.
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China should be paying us for the water we use to grow their food, and then weâd take part of that money to repay the loans they have given us, and that would be how the whole macroeconomic thing is supposed to balance out. Because it would be absurd for us to borrow money from them while selling them food, which would indicate that we are under-pricing our exports. Iâm sure someone will correct me if Iâm wrong, but I think thatâs a key concept of how commodities, currency, and debt reach an equilibrium. That makes more sense than just hating almonds.
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One of these things is not like the other. (Hint, follow the moneyâŚ)
L.A. has a history of other big floods and thatâs why the L.A. River (yes itâs a real river) exists as a vast ditch. I have never seen a photo of it even 10% full, but itâs ready for the big one. See the kayakers in that photo? I guess thatâs the normal seasonal high water mark. Notice that they bridges are elevated high above the top of the ditch? It looks like the assumption is the ditch will overflow massively.
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