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Comment by colechristensen | Hacker News Reader

Solution: tax irrigated alfalfa in particular regions starting small and having yearly rate increases.

Or just charge a fair rate for all water resources in the state, one that is representative of its scarcity and cost, without massively subsidizing inefficient agricultural use in the process.

The alfalfa situation would correct itself if the water being used was fairly priced and not heavily subsidized.

You still have issues of “use it or lose it” water rights in many places so even if it is expensive there’s a massive incentive to still use all of it somehow.

This also ignores that the water contracts in question are often federal and the state of California isn’t necessarily in a position to abrogate their water rights.

You can't just charge the farmer based on a particular crop because they can easily change that from year to year. Alfalfa usually last 4-5 years before they replant. So they would have to basically raise the prices of water for all farmers.

A huge portion of our nation's food supply is grown in CA. It would/could drastically raise the prices of food worldwide because some tax hungry politician wants a larger tax base.

Well yes, that would be a great solution, but it's difficult legally. Those farmers have those water rights fair and square. It pretty much would have to be eminent domain the water rights to make things sane, and the farmers can afford great lawyers with all the money they haven't spent on water.

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