It blows me away every time I drive rt 5 north from Sacramento and see rice fields. Yes, you can grow water hungry crops like rice & alfalfa in a desert and produce them cheaper than wet states with less sunshine, as long as the water is free or nearly so. There’s fallow farmland all over the East that gets plenty of rain, but can’t compete with watering a desert.
Desalination works fine for potable water, it just makes crops way more expensive breaking the CA agriculture model that consumes 80% of their water.
