We’ve got a long way to go before we’re out of options to increase efficiency. Agriculture uses about 80% of California’s water, and we can get a lot more bang for the buck with existing water resources if we’re a little smarter on what we decide to grow here.
Example: About 15% of water used in CA agriculture goes to growing alfalfa to feed livestock. Saudi Arabia actually outlaws growing alfalfa there because it’s a water intensive crop that could and should be grown elsewhere. They actually import a lot of their alfalfa from CA, which is ludicrous. It’s equivalent to us piping our precious water to a country halfway around the world.
Tree nuts are a similar story. Extremely water-intensive and we export most of them overseas.
