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Comment by eru | Hacker News Reader

That's a bit silly.

Almonds are grown in California and not so much elsewhere, because with California's broken water policies you can grow them there for cheaper than elsewhere.

If California were to implement proper water pricing (eg via water trading), then the production costs of almonds in California would rise. And they might rise above the costs in other places, thus leading to a shift in production.

Have a look at water trading in Australia to see a good example of how that can shape agricultural practices. The Australian water trading system ain't perfect, but it's a lot better than the Californian mess. And it allowed agriculture to grow in dollar terms, despite severe limitations on the amount of available water.

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No, almonds are grown in California because of a uniquely favorable climate. They're profligate with water because they're allowed to get away with it.

If water were priced by auction, which I support, almond growers would invest in less wasteful irrigation methods, mostly subsurface drip: https://wcngg.com/2018/08/02/subsurface-drip-irrigation-has-...

More to the point, if water had a market-clearing price, California would stop growing so much alfalfa. Alfalfa uses half, half, of California's water, and California has no unique advantages at all in growing alfalfa.

But to reiterate, your first paragraph is absurd and very silly indeed. Lots of places have super cheap water but California still grows four out of five almonds on Earth. It baffles me that you thought cheap water was a plausible explanation for this.

Underpriced water contributes to California's almond growing. I did not wish to imply that it's the sole cause of all of California's almond growing.

Obviously, there are plenty of places on earth that have essentially free water, and almost none of them grow almonds.

> If water were priced by auction, which I support, almond growers would invest in less wasteful irrigation methods, mostly subsurface drip: [...]

Yes, of course. But that investment costs more money compared to what they are getting away with today, so on the margin we would see less almonds grown in California.

Your suggestion that a reasonably priced water would drop alfalfa production in California a lot more than almond production seems reasonable.

(A slight complication: the fields currently growing alfalfa would presumably grow something else instead of lying fallow. As a second order effect that might lead to more almonds being grown. It would depend on a lot of factors.)

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