Meanwhile, farmers in the Central Valley, which would be a desert without irrigation, keep planting more almonds, alfalfa for export, and other cash crops that require substantially higher water inputs than crops primarily intended to feed people. All while complaining that they aren’t being allowed to drain rivers to the point of irreversible damage, like salinization, and pointing the finger at residential users who pay much higher rates and consume a fraction of the water.
Jon Oliver has a piece on that issue. IIRC Farmers have to use all the water they are allocated or they could lose the rights to it, so they have to plant crops that require a lot of water.
It’s a policy issue that the farmers had to adapt to
Meanwhile, farmers in the Central Valley, which would be a desert without irrigation, keep planting more almonds, alfalfa for export, and other cash crops that require substantially higher water inputs than crops primarily intended to feed people. All while complaining that they aren’t being allowed to drain rivers to the point of irreversible damage, like salinization, and pointing the finger at residential users who pay much higher rates and consume a fraction of the water.
Pretty much all water shortages are caused by irresponsible water use for farming. And yet that never gets addressed.
Jon Oliver has a piece on that issue. IIRC Farmers have to use all the water they are allocated or they could lose the rights to it, so they have to plant crops that require a lot of water. It’s a policy issue that the farmers had to adapt to
Climate Town did a video on this recently.