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Comment by joshstrange | Hacker News Reader

Ahh, ok they hinted at that in the article but for some reason it didn't click in my head. I wonder if the farmers will just move to neighboring states (not that it's easy to pick up and move a farm....) losing farms in California would be a huge loss:

> California produces a sizable majority of many American fruits, vegetables, and nuts: 99 percent of artichokes, 99 percent of walnuts, 97 percent of kiwis, 97 percent of plums, 95 percent of celery, 95 percent of garlic, 89 percent of cauliflower, 71 percent of spinach, and 69 percent of carrots (and the list [1] goes on and on). [0]

[0] http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/explainer/2...

[1] http://www.motherjones.com/files/2agovstat10_web-1.pdf

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> [...] losing farms in California would be a huge loss:

CA produce is not evenly geographically distributed. Production in the coastal ranges is less affected by the drought (compared to the Central Valley), but coastal production is skewed towards fruits and vegetables.

Central Valley production is skewed towards Alfalfa (most of which is exported to China) and Almonds. Both of those are extremely water-intensive to produce and contribute almost no calories to the average American diet (and even less to the poor).

So, cutting off water to Central Valley farmers will have a smaller effect than most predict.

It's not as though the drought just stops at the border of California, so that probably won't be practical.

While true, it's also surprisingly like that- basically, the Sierra Nevadas have been blocking the weather that gave the rest of the country severe flooding last year.

But the agriculturally impacted area is, essentially, the central valley, which is entirely in California.

There are areas of Oregon and Arizona impacted by the same general drought, but they are a drop in the bucket (pun partially intended).

Is this an issue of price? Charging more for water? Or is outright rationing without doing any price hikes the only viable option?

Yes it's an issue of price, but in a market that doesn't function very well. Water, ironically, is not very "liquid" in the economic sense.

Over time, people will have to pay more for their produce. Some farms will shut down and some crops will stop being grown. If the price of water goes high enough, then desalination or new pipelines from wetter areas will start to make sense.

I think so too. There's no reason we have to subsidize agriculture in CA. The one question is do the farmers have some legal claim or right to access the water at non-market rates?

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