Why Is Arizona Using Precious Water to Grow Alfalfa for Saudi Arabia? | Hacker News Reader

Why Is Arizona Using Precious Water to Grow Alfalfa for Saudi Arabia?

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17 pointseep_social6 comments

Same happening in Utah, except the alfalfa is largely going to China. I get that these farmers have to make money and they're just playing the cards the market gives them, but it gets my goat that during the worst megadroughts on record, we are effectively exporting our water.

We're not using it to feed people locally. We're not using it to feed people in NYC or the eastern seaboard. We're not even using it to feed domestic cattle. We're just sending it (or the alfalfa grown with it) abroad.

Farmers here can't afford to buy the alfalfa because China beats them out.

All while the Salt Lake is drying up.

Facepalm

We have seen a providential bumper year for snowpack this year though, and I'm grateful for that. I do think some legislation around the export of products that use a lot of water to make it is in order though. Even better: pay the farmers not to export in the form of subsidies. That way everyone's happy.

The farmers are receiving a huge subsidy already: the water. Water being available for irrigation there at all is the result of a massive dam building project specifically for that. The farmers receive the water far far below the cost associated with building the dams, even though the farmers paying for the irrigation water was the justification for building them in the first place.

The farmers can't afford to grow anything at a profit if they pay the full price of the water, and the crops they can grow in these regions aren't really worth anything anyway. The whole thing is an economic and ecological disaster and there's no clean way out. The entire western US political network is build around the interaction of water and agriculture and there is certainly no way out that isn't political suicide.

But hey at least the dams will eventually silt up and stop providing even that use, but stay in place for potentially thousands of years a blight on mountain rivers eventually outlasting probably even the memory of the name of this country.

Arizona has really good water policies... in large cities. In fact, we have been replenishing certain aquifer levels near phoenix and there is a massive amount of effort that goes into water management.

HOWEVER, outside the cities, its a free-for-all and that is where the majority of these clusterfucks are that you see. Its quite unfortunate, since the state is beautiful and it has lots of redeeming qualities.

Arizona, where water resources are limited and the demand for crops that can generate high profits is high.

And alfalfa seems to be considered a high profit margin export. But seems to be niche to middle Easter countries only .

Saudi Arabia, like many countries in the Middle East, has a high demand for alfalfa to feed its livestock. However, due to water scarcity in the region, it is not possible for them to grow enough alfalfa locally. This is where countries like the US, with access to abundant water resources, come in to meet the demand.

This showed up on MSN this morning...

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/the-saudis-are-draining-ar...

It's funny, these guys had a presence at the New York State Farm show

https://www.canadianfga.ca/en/forage-exports/

and had brochures in Arabic and Mandarin so I'm sure some of what gets exported to the Middle East and Asia comes from places rich in water.

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