The necessity of alfalfa exports from water-scarce US states is certainly not obvious. Why do you believe this is essential?
However, as I understand it, the alfalfa is a soil restorer that the agribusinesses are going to grow anyway. The question is whether there is any benefit to forcing the agribusinesses plow it under vs exporting it.
It's nothing more than purchasing votes with tax dollars and limited natural resources.
> the alfalfa is a soil restorer
So, yes, the agribusinesses WILL grow that alfalfa even if they can't sell it.
Now, you can factually dispute me since I am by no means a California agribusiness expert. However, it is my understanding that alfalfa is uniquely suited to the soil restoration required for the agribusinesses to cycle their fields more quickly.
It is also my understanding that part of the reason why alfalfa can be shipped so cheaply is because you need to return shipping containers back to origin to ship something else and those containers would be empty otherwise.
So, this is a perfect storm of alfalfa that would be grown anyway only to be plowed under being too expensive to ship except for the fact that the shipping is almost free due to the containers being returned to origin.
"We shouldn't be growing anything out there." is an argument that the agribusinesses don't want to have.
"We shouldn't be growing alfalfa out there." is a nice distraction argument that the agribusinesses are happy to have because it concedes that we should be farming the area.
> alfalfa exports from water-scarce US states