Should Agriculture pay less for water?

It is a fundamental principle of conservatism (and basic economics, and simple common sense) that there is no "free lunch" in economics. Small wonder that Sagebrush is clueless of it (on all 3 grounds). California agribusiness would be a fraction of its current size were it not for over a century of massive taxpayer subsidy via dams, aqueducts, pipelines, artificially low water prices, and output price supports. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cadillac_Desert It would not be prudent now to force an immediate cessation of that taxpayer gravy train, but charging them even LESS for water than the very low current rates would be foolish, and Sagebrush's proposed (free water) gravy train to the max would be stupid to the max (even worse than stupid AS the Maxx). The problems due to the current drought go back way before the onset of global warming, although global warming (by increasing extreme weather such as droughts) does not help matters. Even without global warming, however, California needs a more resilient system of water and land use, with less (not more) public subsidy of wasteful practices.

Drought conditions in California may continue well into the future and the cost of water will certainly be an ongoing issue. The priority of water resource allocation is a complicated matter because of the Water Rights in the related States. These negotiations between the "owners of the water" continues to this day. Overall, less water and higher demand, as with most resources, means that prices will continue to increase.

Businesses are challenged to conserve and to economically determine the value of water in their operations. Many farmers and growers are foregoing growth of various crops because of the cost of water. It impacts the bottom line of the business and must be understood. Operations that have access to lower priced water, due to availability issues, will be better positioned to capitalize on its use.

If agriculture pays less for water then another faction (cities) would have to pay more. Freshwater is a scarce resource in much of the western portion of the country and it will continue to become even more scarce as water supplies are removed and not replaced into aquifers. The water seen in canals mostly comes from snow melt, sometimes hundreds of miles away, and up to 70% evaporates before it even gets used. If agriculture continues to grow crops in an area where water costs are higher than other areas, they will not be competitive because their crop cost will be higher. In this situation farms fail because their crops do not sell at the required profit level to stay in business. Relocating farms to locations with water is only one option. There are other options, but that was not the question.

Thanks, Paul at www.greenhomesproductguide.com

Agriculture pays very cheap prices for water, around one-tenth of market rate. Perhaps those crops should be grown in places with more water. You don't have to grow rice in California.

Drought is the norm for California, nothing to do with global warming, in the past some droughts have lasted for more than a hundred years

Penalising the people who grow your food does not sound sensible but then some people don't do joined up thinking. I have no objection to "sustainability" but I do think it should be tried out somewhere before we roll it out to the world by force of law.

I would like to nominate California as the place for the experiment. They have all the right attitudes to make it a success. Obviously, it would mean severing the power lines to Nevada and removing the oil wells in downtown LA etc. They could then charge whatever they wanted for energy and water, regulate transport as appropriate, restrict flights, personal aircraft, over-large houses etc. They could set their own level for grants to stimulate the adoption of "green" energy.

Then in a few years time we could see what they had achieved. We would look to see how Silicon Valley had prospered, how Google and Apple were progressing, what the Hollywood set thought of their smaller houses, the changes in immigration rate and company relocations, etc etc.

If it proved to be a success then the rest of the world should adopt the model.

Agriculture should pay nothing for water. (I don't consider growing Marijuana as agriculture.) They are doing a public service. Why always hit the farmer up for everything?