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Comment by JohnWhigham | Hacker News Reader

Expecting all the modern amenities of life while living in the desert is just pure arrogance. I seriously don't know why governments subsidize it.

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According to the stats above, modern amenities of life aren't the main consumer of the water:

> 82% of Utah water goes to farmers.

In 2021, we don't need to grow Alfalfa in the desert. Especially not when it's being exported out of state anyway.

From your perspective and mine yes, but politically one needs a policy that also addresses all the people already involved making their living from that activity.

This is a micro sized problem of the larger scale fractal problem of climate crisis and industrial shifts needed to address it.

What is the number of people directly involved in production of alfalfa in the desert that would no longer have work if the alfalfa production in the desert stopped. Do these jobs absolutely 100% depend on alfalfa, or would they "pivot" to other crops? Is the "farming" sector in Utah that artificial that there is no other crop?

Also consider the markets that depend on the alfalfa that you'd disrupt.

I'm not arguing it's not worth disrupting, but it's not a simple problem.

Change to “another crop” is like a farmer telling a software company built on Java to switch to a C++ stack because it’s just another language. There is crop specific knowledge that makes it not just planting something else.

It’s also not just the knowledge and technology capital involved, like many startups here, it’s connection to markets that matter to produce income. Ag wise it’s not clear what other, lower water-usage crop one would switch to, or how our system would encourage, or require, or incentivize that change.

While that may be true, how many people is it? The water from the river that is wasted in Utah means it is not available for more viable uses downstream. What impact will that have? I'm guessing the number of people positively impacted from stopping this use of water will be greater than the number of farmers impacted. If the main reason that this is not being discussed is because the person in charge has literal skin in the game, then it makes it even worse (potentially criminal?).

Correct, but we can have many logical, systemically positive reasons for changing it, but if we can’t address or overcome the concerns of those holding the power then it’s a largely a moot discussion.

The more macro question is can enough alfalfa be grown elsewhere, in areas that don't need so much artifical irrigation, or is the Utah production required to meet demand?

Not a farmer, but alfalfa can be grown many places. I watched a gabe brown video where he mentioned growing it for cattle grazing in North Dakota, which is basically a cold desert. Presumably US farmers in wetter climates like the upper midwest and southeast are capable of growing more profitable crops than cattle feed.

Just one example: If we switched to electric cars and eliminated the need for the midwest to grow corn for ethanol, then a tremendous amount of farmland would open up. So you're right to ask the macro question, it's just that the answer is complicated.

>then a tremendous amount of farmland would open up.

I'm not so sure. CorpFarmUSA will still want to continue growing the exact same crop, and would probably just find alternate buyers. They have so much clout with their lobby. Knee jerk reaction is to Save The Farmers!!!, yet if people actually stopped and looked at what how these farms are operating, the knee jerk reaction might change.

However, it is 2021 and I'm very cynical, so I do not believe people are willing to consider any view outside their own to be able to come to comprimise.

You are right... but if I understood the above, it's not the modern amenities using up the bulk of the water, it's the agriculture.

Because people don't really "use" water. When you flush the toilet or take a shower the water doesn't get destroyed. The vast majority of it gets treated and put back into the river.

The water used in agriculture will mostly evaporate or become part of the plant. Little of it will make it back to the source.

People absolutely use water by this metric, but most of it goes to their lawn.

Evaporated water eventually falls as rain, though probably somewhere else.

People absolutely should live in the desert.

It's better than what we usually do: destroy natural bio-diverse habitats along rivers and coasts and replace them with housing and strip malls.

I live in an area of the country that has some of the very best environment in the entire world for growing crops. Length of seasons, rainfall, topsoil depth and quality, etc. The very best in the world, no hyperbole.

And yet, due to this land being near a major metroplex, we are busy paving it over with roads and buildings. Mostly what is grown now is Kentucky bluegrass, which doesn't do so great here (or anywhere besides Kentucky?) and so needs frequent applications of pesticides and water to stay green.

Market forces, I know. But from a larger perspective, how does this situation make the slightest bit of sense?

Deserts are natural bio-diverse habitats.

Talk about sending people to Mars...

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