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Comment by djha-skin | Hacker News Reader

I'm kinda happy about this.

Our farmers in Utah lobby so hard for water, then use it to grow alfalfa which they sell to China because they can sell it there for more money than it can be sold locally. It boils my circuits that they ask for our precious water -- to which they have historically had an obvious right, growing our food -- and then basically ship it overseas. Keep the crops at least sold in the US, and hopefully to other Utahns who have a hard time buying alfalfa because China inflates the price. 80% of our water goes to farmers here. I'm glad of it when they grow wheat and sell it to us, but not when it gets exported. These tariffs will hopefully help with that.

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It’s a fair point, but I feel like we could take more targeted action on alfalfa without the side effects of the current policies. It feels a bit like celebrating your house burning down because you didn’t like the color of paint in the kitchen.

Honestly, no one should be using water to grow alfalfa in Utah. The way Western water law currently works with prior appropriation encourages extremely wasteful uses of water, just because they don’t want to lose their valuable water allocations (use it or lose it). Alfalfa is a VERY water intensive crop, growing it in the desert wouldn’t make sense without these perverse incentives.

There’s a lot of effects, but one very visible one in Utah is the fact that the Great Salt Lake is drying out, because too much water is being diverted from its tributaries. Now there’s dust getting stirred up from the exposed lake bed that’s chock full of heavy metals, which is less than ideal next to a fairly big city.

How are the farmers selling to China at better prices and then the consumers also buying from China at higher prices than the local farmers.

How does it not short circuit and the farmers just sell locally for the price of the goods from China?

alfalfa is water-intensive. This export is straight up resource theft.

The market is saturated. American farmers already buy as much alfalfa as they want. The next unit of alfalfa is worth basically nothing to them.

To sell more alfalfa in America you'd need more farms to raise more cattle (the main use for alfalfa), which would put even more strain on the American water supplies. That would produce more meat, which you could sell to China, but it would be more expensive than the Chinese homegrown beef, which they'd buy more of.

But youve clearly defined what the problem is. Is a tariff the solution?

It’s not the only solution, but it is one, as we saw back in the first Trump administration and their tariffs on, and the resulting counter tariffs from, China. It will almost certainly dramatically reduce demand for crops like this from the US, which will lead to less farmers (as many leave the business or go bankrupt) and ultimately less water usage by the farmers.

What does US farmers going bankrupt solve?

I believe you may have some reading comprehension problem with what they laid out?

At least in the parents posters mind that less farm exports leads to less water usage. Hence bankrupt farmers solves things like aquifers going empty and lakes draining leavings environmental disasters.

Now, how it actually works out in the end may be different, but the concept doesn't seem completely broken at first appearance.

Bankrupting farmers isn't a solution. That's like also saying bankrupting consumers means they'll eat less. The initial problem laid out what farm products leaving for China. They had no problem with using the water, just that its products were being exported rather than used locally. Also, water is a local cycle. Keep the products close to put the water back into the systems.

> That's like also saying bankrupting consumers means they'll eat less.

I would presume that this is true, in the sense that the overall economic footprint of what these bankrupted consumers eat will be smaller.

The caloric difference will be insignificant. But instead of having it come from meat, and especially cattle, have it come from vegetables and poultry.

No one needs to eat red meat every day.

> I believe you may have some reading comprehension problem with what they laid out?

Why the personal attack?

The top level comment didn't claim that it would solve the water problem, but that it would solve some apparent problem with Utahns but being able to buy alfalfa. Now another commentor is saying that it'll solve the water problem by putting farmers out of business. Is there a local unmet need for alfalfa?

Honestly it feels a bit like pissing one's pants to get some warmth in winter. It solves the immediate problem, but how it works out in the end...

Farmland is overpriced in part due to farm subsidies. It will help bring land prices back to earth for other uses.

These people are standing in a burning house, happy they won't have to pay the heating bill

Yes it is not the answer. About this issue see https://www.sltrib.com/opinion/editorial/2022/12/04/why-its-...

Tariffs look more and more like the Bolivian Tree Lizard cleanup plans: https://youtu.be/P9yruQM1ggc

> they can sell it there for more money than it can be sold locally

So, just to be clear here: you want Utah farmers to foot the bill for the trade war? If they are forced to sell locally for less, they're the ones losing money. Utahns end up poorer in this scenario.

Obviously in a trade war, everyone ends up poorer. It's just simple math. It's absolutely dumbfounding the extent to which people have simply decided to ignore an honest truth simply because of the lies of one political cult.

I don't think it was OPs point. OP's point is that agricultural exporters in Utah profits on externalizations (aquifer depletion), which impoverishes everybody depending on that aquifer.

When you come to the realization that you can't drink money, this comes as good news.

So... you think Utahns are simply going to stop farming and end up destitute? I'm not following. No, they'll keep turning the spigot on because they have kids to feed, they'll just be poorer.

If you want better water regulation in the Utah desert, the solution is better water regulation in the Utah desert and not a huge tax on trade.

Of course they'll continue farming. Just not alfalfa!

Yeah, because passing water regulation under any administration, let alone this one, is a common occurrence. /s

OP was just trying to make lemonade from the lemons we are served.

And I'm just saying that there are no lemons here. Empoverishing Utah farmers does nothing to fix their aquifer, period. They'll just be forced into less lucrative crops, and potentially into techniques that are more short-term and less protective of long term resources like water. Look at aquifer management elsewhere in the world. Are the poor countries doing a better job? Exactly.

Sure, but it's also entirely the wrong policy solution for the problem as it has been laid out.

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