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Rice is largely (~95%) grown in the Sacramento Valley, which has plenty of water for it [0].

California produces 82% of the world's almonds [1].

California is a big ag state for crops requiring irrigation because we have a lot of water (relatively), good weather, and damned good farmers. People would do well to start thinking about California's water problems with the assumption that the farmers have thought about it a lot more than they have.

[0] http://www.sacbee.com/news/local/article2598509.html

[1] http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-california-almonds-201...

Someone thinking about it more is irrelevant. Let's see evidence, plans, and simulations about how the problem can be solved rather than deferring to yet another authority.

The regional water boards in California, along with the local water districts, have ample amounts of all of the above dating back to 1967 and beyond, funded by taxpayers, with publicly available data, and in most cases involving said farmers.

Feel free to look at the data and get back with your findings. In the meantime, no, "someone thinking about it more" isn't irrelevant. They've been thinking about it more, and taking action, for decades.

If you can't link me straight to what you're talking about, then it isn't good enough yet. If I had to attempt to verify every bullshit sounding argument that I came across, I'd never get any work done.

The fact is there appears to be a serious water shortage while the 'authorities' have supposedly been taking care of it for decades.

The argument that was made was that we should assume the farmers have "thought about it more than we have", with the implication that we should heed their opinion because they've been sioled away for decades, 'thinking about it'.

Show me the dashboard that shows real-time estimates for total water reserves and all the charts about how long that will last us under all scenarios.

I was able to find this: http://cdec.water.ca.gov/cdecapp/resapp/getResGraphsMain.act...

But that's just an image posted on top of the state's ubiquitous CMS showing how far below average the water levels have fallen under the stewardship of the current authorities. It's not terrible, but the problem is that it provides very little context for what those water levels mean. How long is that water going to last (it seems like we want to find a way to make this 'indefinite')? How should water usage be modified to make it last longer? What are the effects going to be on food production?

These are the questions that we need to know the answers to. Furthermore,this information should be accessible to everyone through a URL so that most of us who don't have time to look back through ~45 years of data to figure out what is going on, can get the current, most relevant information to form rational opinions, instead of just trusting that the 'people in charge' are on top of it.

Sorry wooster, but "time spent thinking" is utterly irrelevant. Why? Because the expression is meaningless. To have meaning it needs to indicate to what end.

There's a world of difference between (for example) "thinking about how to assert as much control over a limited resource for the lowest cost possible" and "thinking about how to manage a limited resource as effectively as possible given the broad range of needs and interests in the state."

Farmers have been thinking about themselves for decades. The policies we have as a result reflect precious little interest in the well-being of California as a whole.

Farmers are the direct beneficiaries of large, expensive water projects paid for through taxes and bond measures. You can certainly bet they have thought a lot about California's water problems, but I wouldn't accept their suggestions as impartial.

Claiming that the Sacramento Valley has plenty of water for rice is nonsense. The Sacramento Valley gets its water from the Sacramento River, which is "fully appropriated" and, from the view out my window, is looking a little shallow these days.

I've seen this hostility toward agriculture from Californians before on HN, and I don't understand it. Farmers grow the food we eat, so if they need water, we need them to need that water. There doesn't need to be a divide between farmer and non-farmer, with each side hating the other.

It's because food should be grown where it's economical to grow it, not where government subsidy is the fundamental thing allowing it. In a manner of speaking, California's chief source of fertilizer is Washington.

That's a fair point. I think it can be done more cooperatively, though, without the animosity.

Still, there are definitely parts of California that are the best place to grow certain things, and there's also something to be said for locally grown produce in terms of carbon footprint and national food security.

Considering that farmers are effectively living off of welfare, have been doing so for generations, and tend to be one of the furthest-right voting blocks in the state, I think a fair amount of animosity is warranted.

If they're living off welfare, we're living off the reduced food prices that welfare provides. It's effectively a regressive subsidy to those who most need it, low-income households for whom food is a significant expense.

I come from a suburbanized semi-rural area, and farms and dairies are shutting down all the time because it's not profitable. It's not like they're living large on government largess, at least not at the local farm level with a few square miles of land or a hundred dairy cows.

Aside from the fact that it would be more efficient to just give people money or food, a significant part of farm subsidy comes in the form of import tariffs and minimum guaranteed prices that force food prices up, not down. Furthermore these barriers have the insidious effect of keeping developing economies from participating in the global economy because their farm goods are untradeable. If you think farmers have it tough here, check out rural Guatemala.

I understand your emotional attachment to farming as a lifestyle. The farm lobby trades on this heavily ("my family has been growing sugar beets for eight generations, we need the subsidies!"). Change happens. The sooner we get the kinds of changes that stop farmers from growing rice growing in California, the better.

Since we do not live in a world yet entirely "safe for democracy," I am sympathetic to the idea of national food security. But my understanding is that rice, just to take an example, could be better grown in New Orleans, but because of subsidy is grown in California.

Now, if I've got some details wrong, I apologize. My point is that it's a safe bet that, even within this nation itself, subsidy is misallocating economic resources.

> which has plenty of water for it [0] [0] http://www.sacbee.com/news/local/article2598509.html

That link does not support what you've said. It's just an article about there not being enough water for farmers.. really the opposite of what you've said.

The link was mostly for the 95% stat for the Sacramento Valley. A lot of people who trot out the rice talking point seem to think rice is mostly being grown in a "desert", when it's really not.

fair enough. thanks for the clarification.

Much of the central Sacramento valley is floodplain which can be, and has been, more of an inland sea or lake during wet winters than a valley.

Before flood control was put in, Sacramento itself was subject to major inundations, though the last of these was in the 1950s as I recall.

During early settler / Indian times, substantially the entire central valley would flood. It's a watershed in which a 300-400 mile long, 50-100 mile wide region drains, all of it flowing out ultimately through the Golden Gate. Water can and does pile up there.

And that's the region where rice is typically grown.

Contrast this with southern California -- the arid southern part of the Sacramento / San Joaquin Valley near Bakersfield is pretty dry, but cross the Tehachapi Mountains to the south and you're in the Mohave desert. That region still gets water, via the California Aqueduct and state water project, and is also home to much agriculture, including alfalfa and cotton cultivation, which demands a lot of water.

What region has the worst farmers?

Maybe more interesting, which one with comparable economic development to the US.

Almonds are one thing... we actually need those.

The sad part is, most of the agricultural water goes to alfalfa.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/08/opinion/meat-makes-the-pla...

A predominately meat diet uses about 10 times the water and energy to produce.

Stop the free water subsidies to big agro businesses, and let the free market price of water affect meat prices.

That's a fantastic idea, but it's far too practical and sensible for California. It doesn't include any feel-good meddling or opportunities for kickbacks for the powerful and connected.

> Almonds are one thing... we actually need those.

Unless I'm missing something major, we "need" almonds for exactly one reason: they're tasty. That exact same "need" exists for meat. Personally, I'm quite happy eating neither, since I'm not a fan of nuts in general.

I recognize some people love almonds, and I'm not running around trying to get them banned, but I definitely think, just as with meat, we need to think of these things as choices, not just plain needs.

Almonds are extremely nutritious.

Ok... maybe "need" is a bit strong, we don't need any specific food item, but my point is, we do need food and that food does require water.

Check out page 8 of this pdf.... http://www.cggc.duke.edu/environment/valuechainanalysis/CGGC...

Nuts do use water in California. Slightly less than rice (at least in 2003, there may be some variations since).

The point is... by far the biggest (and most unnecessary) user of agricultural water in California is Alfalfa. (Yes, I know there was a recent Slate article on Almonds. But the amount of water they use pales in comparison to Alfalfa.)

What is it we need almonds for? I like them myself from time to time, but I could live with paying 2x for them if they were scarcer. Raising meat does consume a lot of water, but of course there are many other meat-farming areas in the US so economically it's fairly easy to substitute. It certainly will be next year, as midwestern beef will be quite a bit cheaper following a bumper corn crop this year.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ogallala_Aquifer

Make a point if you have one. I have better things to do than spend time wondering which of the many different possible points you were trying to make.

What is it we need almonds for?

Macarons.

On the other hand, we could always let them eat cake.

This might be a golden opportunity to switch to more drought resistant and low water consuming crops.

Another aspect of this is that farmers are paid by the weight of their produce, and the much weight of many crops comes from the water content. Therefore, farmers have a strong incentive to use a lot of water to "fatten up" the produce they sell.

I don't really think you have an even basic understanding about how plants grow or work.

Watering a plant in no way makes the plant magically contain more water than a properly watered plant, it just means more run off. Also, crops are often not sold by the farmer by weight, but rather by a mix of volume and average quality.

The info from my post came from someone involved in water use research. I fully believe that a lot is lost to run-off also, but how do you define "properly watered".

Is there a single set point per plant that is "optimal" and optimal by what measure? At the market, I have seen pretty large variance in the water content of different produce, often dependent on on the source.

Also, for what type of plant is volume not correlated with weight?

EDIT: The downvote of my prior post seems unwarranted. Even if it could be demonstrated that my facts were wrong, there was nothing pejorative in anything I wrote, unlike the first sentence of your reply.