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Comment by pkaye | Hacker News Reader

Do you think if the state gave incentives to use more efficient water usage methods would help. The reality is agriculture is 80% of water consumption while 2% of the state GDP. It would be more efficient for farmers to conserve water and everyone else pitching in to subsidize it.

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The water restriction measures are mostly bikeshedding (yes, removing public lawns is probably a good thing) on low consumption behaviors on those consitutents viewed to be most accepting and least threatening to the political establishment. It's akin to allowing Diesel trucks older than 1998 in CA to continue spewing particulates into the air because regulation would be "too expensive," and instead highly regulate passenger vehicles. Both are needed, as holistic solutions to diffuse problems tend to be the best, but asking one group to shoulder a collective burden is horse baloney. Yet, the action of the governor is a signal of an ongoing issue but it's token as it doesn't start to address the quagmire of where legacy water rights meets gamification and usage with sensible limitations. If CA doesn't work on the larger structural water allocation issues, water will become more scarce and expensive because a few large, influential farmers will continue to make themselves rich at everyone else's expense. (Carbon emissions need to go down too.)

Maybe CA needs well-informed grassroots picketing against farmer water rights gluttony in Sacramento?

I frequently see water consumption compared to %gdp, but I don't think this is actually very meaningful. Shifting 10% of the water from agriculture to software isn't going to improve software one iota. The water should be where it's going to be doing the most good.

That's not to say that farmers don't need to conserve more - the 80% alone means that's where we should be looking for efficiency wins (whatever portion of gdp), and letting them draw down shared aquifers without paying their neighbors is a clear tragedy of the commons situation.

% of GDP is one lens to look through when thinking about water rights. Having access to affordable/local/healthy food is another.

I think incentives would help, yes. There is also a "use it or lose it" system builtin to many of the water rights contracts that are toxic. Much like big corporate budgets, farmers find a way to use the water just in case they need it the next year.

The reality is it is very expensive to change irrigation systems in established orchards. Incentives to do that would certainly be well received by the tree farmers I know.

Of course you fail to mention how much water in the form of crops (especially alfalfa) are being exported. That wouldn't fit in with the friendly local farmer providing nutritious food narrative, now would it?

My point about the GDP is that it is such a small part of the overall economy that it is feasible to share the burden to improving the irrigation systems across the full population. And perhaps the "use it or lose it" penalties could be put on hold during a prolonged drought situation till hopefully things improve.

Also in your opinion, are the high water usage due to primarily the irrigation methods or that the crops need lot of water? Like almonds for example?

Irrigation methods can significantly reduce water usage for some crops. Others require gobs of water. I don't know the numbers for each crop, though.

The Almond Board of California has some info on this for Almonds. Obviously, take this as you will, given the source: http://www.almonds.com/pdfs/waterfactsheet315.pdf

I would hesitate to call Central Valley "local" to most Californians.

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