Almonds are grown in California and not so much elsewhere, because with California's broken water policies you can grow them there for cheaper than elsewhere.
If California were to implement proper water pricing (eg via water trading), then the production costs of almonds in California would rise. And they might rise above the costs in other places, thus leading to a shift in production.
Have a look at water trading in Australia to see a good example of how that can shape agricultural practices. The Australian water trading system ain't perfect, but it's a lot better than the Californian mess. And it allowed agriculture to grow in dollar terms, despite severe limitations on the amount of available water.
No, almonds are grown in California because of a uniquely favorable climate. They're profligate with water because they're allowed to get away with it.
More to the point, if water had a market-clearing price, California would stop growing so much alfalfa. Alfalfa uses half, half, of California's water, and California has no unique advantages at all in growing alfalfa.
But to reiterate, your first paragraph is absurd and very silly indeed. Lots of places have super cheap water but California still grows four out of five almonds on Earth. It baffles me that you thought cheap water was a plausible explanation for this.
Underpriced water contributes to California's almond growing. I did not wish to imply that it's the sole cause of all of California's almond growing.
Obviously, there are plenty of places on earth that have essentially free water, and almost none of them grow almonds.
> If water were priced by auction, which I support, almond growers would invest in less wasteful irrigation methods, mostly subsurface drip: [...]
Yes, of course. But that investment costs more money compared to what they are getting away with today, so on the margin we would see less almonds grown in California.
Your suggestion that a reasonably priced water would drop alfalfa production in California a lot more than almond production seems reasonable.
(A slight complication: the fields currently growing alfalfa would presumably grow something else instead of lying fallow. As a second order effect that might lead to more almonds being grown. It would depend on a lot of factors.)
Why? Id truly be interested to know what makes Californian geography so massively advantages competitively that isn't infrastructure or economics of scale
The Central Valley is an incomprehensibly vast area of incredibly fertile soil, due to its history as a seabed and collection basin of all the mineral runoff from the mountains. It also has California weather, which means one of the longest growing seasons on the planet. Crops grown there grow faster and easier than anywhere else to begin with, and then on top of that you get to grow them twice in one year. It's really kind of unfair when you compare to farmers trying to scratch out a crop anywhere else.
That said... it's not like California is the only place it's possible to grow almonds, or even to grow them profitably. It's just the most profitable place, especially if you're exporting to a US- or Western-centric market. And as with everything related to the environment, that's because the profits are centralized while negative externalities are socialized. We all pay the price of the reservoirs depleting and the aquifers running dry - maybe not monetarily, yet, but in the form of LA needing to ration water in homes, and in the form of possibly causing earthquakes [1] - but only a small handful of people collect the benefits. And because water is available in practically uncapped quantities for such an incredibly cheap price, they have no incentive not to do so.
How much should society value a change in the risk of The Big One happening in the next decade by, say, 1%? Or a similar increased risk of thousands dying of thirst in an increasingly hot summer? Or even just a extra few weeks of water rationing being in place every other year? Probably a lot more than what the almond farms are collectively paying for their water.
I do actually believe that markets can solve a lot of problems - but in order to do so, pricing needs to include the entirety of the transaction. Right now, water - especially bulk use of water - appears cheap, because our future selves or children are unknowingly kicking in part of what's being paid. Non-renewable resources like this need to be a lot more expensive in places where they're scarce, or else they're going to become extremely expensive at some point in the future.
> And as with everything related to the environment, that's because the profits are centralized while negative externalities are socialized. We all pay the price of the reservoirs depleting and the aquifers running dry - maybe not monetarily, yet, but in the form of LA needing to ration water in homes, and in the form of possibly causing earthquakes [1] - but only a small handful of people collect the benefits. And because water is available in practically uncapped quantities for such an incredibly cheap price, they have no incentive not to do so.
Exactly. Capitalism is already a contestable proposition, but capitalism with infinite money cheats for some?
Without proper accounting of externalities, capitalism does not work even in theory. This means water and all natural resources, it means pollution, it means harmful products like tobacco or social media, it means big cars... So on so on
Most California lowlands like the Central Valley sit on alluvial plains where water runoff from the mountains evaporated over millions of years, depositing nutrients dissolved from rock. It’s like the Nile river delta but over time instead of flooding every year. They were also once an ocean, so there’s a very deep layer of fossilized organisms that provide nutrients too.
There’s other reasons like California’s climate supporting a double growing season for many plants but the fertility is what really makes it so economically competitive. Farmers still have to use tons of NPK fertilizer like everyone else but most of the micronutrients are already in the ground so it’s a lot easier to get high yields with low risk and little micro optimization.
