California's Water Woes Threaten the Entire Country's Food Supply

[depakid]

Nearly a third of the country's food supply comes from California, but drought there may be a catastrophe for farmers -- and the rest of us.

What a difference an administration makes. Samuel Bodman, the previous secretary of energy under the Bush administration, spent his short term stumping for nuclear power plant construction, polluting the hell out of the Earth, profiting off global warming and trying to significantly downplay America's singular role in greenhouse-gas emissions.

The new one? Well, he's a doom prophet with a Ph.D.

"I don't think the American public has gripped in its gut what could happen. We're looking at a scenario where there's no more agriculture in California. I don't actually see how they can keep their cities going," Steven Chu told the Los Angeles Times in February, shortly after taking office in January. "I'm hoping that the American people will wake up," he added, just in case there was any confusion about the gravity of the situation.

That kind of apocalyptic foresight has made Chu a breath of fresh, dystopian air. For eight nearly insufferable years, the American public has had no shortage of political tools telling it everything is going to be all right, that the United States is the greatest country in the world, that reports of our impending environmental devastation have been greatly exaggerated, and so on. By contrast, Steven Chu is a Cassandra on a mission from reality. But few, especially in the state he singled out, feel like buying what he is selling.

"Dr. Chu is not a climate scientist," argued Jim Metropulos, senior advocate at Sierra Club's California chapter, echoing the same conditional given in the Los Angeles Times article in which Chu was quoted. "Obviously, he's versed on it, but he's taking an apocalyptic view. I think it's not sustainable in its current form. We rely on imported water to grow high-value crops, but maybe the agriculture we have today may not be the agriculture we have decades from now."

That's a big maybe.

Here are some not-so-fun facts: California's agricultural sector grows approximately one-third of the nation's food supply and is nourished by diverted rivers and streams filled yearly by runoff from its prodigious Sierra Nevada snowpack, as well as groundwater pumping and other less-reliable methods. That snowpack -- which once sparked the first, but not the last, water war that helped transform a semi-arid Los Angeles into an unsustainable oasis less populous than only New York City -- is disappearing fast. Hence Chu's worrisome prediction.

To make matters worse, a crushing drought, now well into its third year, has made simply everything problematic. In California's central valley, home to a majority of the state's agricultural output, farmers are leaving hundreds of thousands of acres fallow, and the resultant economic depression is having a domino effect that could cost California $1 billion to start and is causing residents of a one-time food powerhouse to go hungry.

In April, a series of spring showers and storms upped the snowpack to 80 percent of normal. At the beginning of May, it stumbled to 66 percent, compared to 72 percent the year before. Complicating that are recent federal directives mandating reductions of water deliveries to California farmers and urban users by 5 to 7 percent in hopes of preserving the Pacific Coast's salmon fishery, which is hovering, like the state's snowpack, on the brink of extinction.

More: http://www.alternet.org/water/140487/california%27s_water_woes_threaten_the_entire_country%27s_food_supply/?page=entire

[XemaSab]

1. California is not going to stop growing food

We may well stop growing affordable food, but part of the problem is that farm water is almost too cheap to meter.

The first big change is going to be when we start making farmers pay a LOT more for water, which in turn will precipitate massive conservation, a spike in specialty food prices (such as nuts and fruit), and a big shift away from water-sucking crops such as the CRAP crops (cotton, rice, alfalfa, and pasture).

Most crops here are flood-irrigated. :shrug:

[elleng]

2. 'Too cheap to meter?'

Explain, please.

And aren't there restrictions on water use, as CA's water is diverted from other states?

[XemaSab]

3. Farmers get massive, massive subsidies for water

The amount paid for water in the state of California ranges from about $7 to $2108 (!) per acre foot, depending on whether you're a farmer in Hanford or Oprah in Santa Barbara.

We don't get any water from other states. The only water we get that flows through other states is Colorado River water, but that flows along our southeast border.

Residents are encouraged to conserve, but the farmers notsomuch. The penalty for not conserving is typically just a higher water bill.

[kestrel91316]

5. There are restrictions THIS year - as in: water has been SHUT OFF

to Central Valley farmers.

I heard it hasn't been cut back, it's been cut OFF. And because there weren't even cutBACKS in the past few years, nobody has had any chance to change how they farm.

Ahnuld has run this state right into the ground. I think W must be his guide.

[XemaSab]

6. Westlands is getting 10% of what they usually get

This is good news for them... they were originally forecast to get 0%.

[glitch]

8. Just doing what he was hired to do.

"Ahnuld has run this state right into the ground"

And why Gray Davis had to go.

[HamdenRice]

4. I wish that sometimes people would apply economics to this kind of forecast

California produces so much of our produce because it could do so cheaply. It put farmers out of business in other states. Some of the cheapness of California produce was a result of ecology, and some of subsidies.

But if California were to cease producing food, it's not like the country would starve. Many of the food producing areas that were put out of business would start producing food again -- most notably, the southeast.

Malthusian thinking tends to be pretty pervasive.

[Wednesdays]

7. K&R

:kick:

[WhiteTara]

9. mayibe if the owners of the farm land

hadn't planted almonds of 500 miles, there would be lots of food.

[femrap]

10. I've read about some governmental law

that doesn't allow farmers to change crops or they will lose their subsidies or tax benefits. So if you have been planting corn and soy beans and decide to change to vegetables like turnips or broccoli or lettuce, you lose money.

Maybe someone can clarify this for me. But this is what I read. It sounded just too damn insane, but that is what America is these days.

[WhiteTara]

11. how would that help with the trees

they are certainly no crop...as in annual vegetable crop.

[depakid]

12. Last I heard, almonds were a fine food source

and one that can't be grown all that well just anywhere in the nation.

[WhiteTara]

13. how many do you eat?

We're talking about the vegetable garden of the country. Lettuce, onions, carrots, and on and on are now produced in China, Argentina.

this is part of the ongoing destruction of the environment. Mono culture (500 miles) invites pests and disease. The something or other moth requires massive spraying to eradicate which in turn kills everything around.