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Chaz
Trad climber
greater Boss Angeles area
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Let's do an experiment, Franky.
I'll eat food produced by farmers.
You eat food produced by a committee of scientists.
We'll see who can keep it going longer.
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MisterE
Trad climber
Canoga Bark! CA
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In the 80's in LaConner Washington, they had a smelt derby every fall. People would take over the town, and thousands of smelt jiggers lined the LaConner slough.
We never partook in it - why? Well, LaConner dumped it's raw sewage into the slough at that time, and the smelt just thrived on it. We simply thought it was gross to eat fish that fed on human excrement.
As soon as they built the sewage treatment plant in LaConner, the smelt disappeared.
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franky
climber
Davis, CA
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Topic Author's Reply - Oct 9, 2009 - 12:46pm PT
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How about this experiment, which actually makes sense in the context of the argument.
-I'll live in a state where farming is regulated by scientific policy decisions.
-You'll live in a state were farmers are given free reign.
We will see which state is in better shape 20 years down the road.
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Chaz
Trad climber
greater Boss Angeles area
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Franky,
Have you ever produced a commercial crop, of any kind?
I have.
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franky
climber
Davis, CA
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Topic Author's Reply - Oct 9, 2009 - 12:50pm PT
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Chaz, have you ever studied a wetland/stream/any body of water at any time? I have.
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Chaz
Trad climber
greater Boss Angeles area
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That qualifies you to second guess farming methods about as well as a non-climber is able to give out route beta.
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franky
climber
Davis, CA
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Topic Author's Reply - Oct 9, 2009 - 12:59pm PT
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There is nothing in this thread about farming methods, it is about how much water farmers are given.
You are trying to change the debate to expose the fact that I'm not a farmer, which i'm obviously not, nor am i pretending to be. The amount of water delivered to, and pumped out of the delta has absolutely zero to do with farming methods.
If you think otherwise, please clarify. As of right now you don't make any sense.
edit for clarity- Farmers could use more or less water, which would change the amount they want, but the limits on the amount of water pumped don't have anything to do with farming methods. They are dependent on the ecosystem of the streams and wetlands.
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JEleazarian
Trad climber
Fresno CA
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franky,
I'll try again to express my objection to your approach. Allocation of water is an economic problem. Science can tell us how any proposed diversion of riparian water affects a particular wetland, stream, lake, ocean or aquifer. It cannot, however, tell us what effects we will accept and what we will not for a given alternative water use. Put another way, your panel of scientists cannot determine an optimal allocation of competing claims for water.
I believe your approach reflects your personal priority for water use, namely to maintain a particular environmental quality in the Delta. Upstream, we have less of a concern for that. Not surprisingly, downstreamers have less of a concern for the welfare of upstreamers.
My personal solution would be to use your panel of scientists to estimate marginal cost of riparian water deliveries, and then charge all customers that marginal cost. This will necessarily change the price by the amount of water availability, but it will also end subsidized water delivery.
I have a twist that you probably won't like, though. Those who want to keep a particularly aquarian habitat in any particular condition should also need to pay the marginal cost. Otherwise, we are subsidizing a group of water users, viz. you and those who think like you. How I do this, I don't know, because there are many of us who care about water quality, but don't like the idea of paying for it if others can freeload from our payment. I'm sure creative people could find a way, though.
One final point. I've bitten my tongue on this for so long I'm getting canker sores, so please forgive me for mouthing off. I have been involved with agriculture for decades. I got my first climbing gear from the money I made picking grapes and driving a tractor over forty years ago. Most recently, I farmed 140 acres of cherries. I find your assumptions about farming and farmers insulting. Your idea that farmers don't care about the sustainability of their methods or of their land, trees, vines and crops tells us you think we're stupid, and you're smarter than we are. That makes it much harder to listen to you, although I'll still try. I have one daughter who graduated from UC Davis, and another about to (mostly paid for by those cherries), so if for no other reason, your location makes me interested in what you think.
Thanks.
John
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guyman
Trad climber
Moorpark, CA.
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Franky is a communist, he knows just what is "best" for us.
He knows what is right for us.
He knows how we should do it.
Are you going to live on a diet of Smelt?
And what's wrong with profit?
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klk
Trad climber
cali
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JE: My personal solution would be to use your panel of scientists to estimate marginal cost of riparian water deliveries, and then charge all customers that marginal cost. This will necessarily change the price by the amount of water availability, but it will also end subsidized water delivery.
Hahaha. I take it you aren't planning to run for any public office in the Valley anytime soon.
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apogee
climber
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"Allocation of water is an economic problem....I believe your approach reflects your personal priority for water use..."
And John, I believe your view reflects your approach to water use, which appears to be primarily economic (and capitalist). Your farming history and ideology skews your view of how this resource should be managed and used. By noting this, I am not marginalizing you as one of the extremist voices in this issue, but pointing out your perspective is framed by your history and interests.
As water rights and use has been negotiated over the years, the simple fact is that there is far more money driving the agricultural interests of water use (mostly from big agribusiness, spun as small farmers trying to grow food for the citizens) than there has been for the environmental interests. It's about balance.
Growing rice and cotton in the Central Valley is not balanced- it's extremist and unrealistic. Subsidizing those growers, or providing water to them at the same cost as a more environmentally-appropriate crop is ridiculous. Produce that is grown within the state is most appropriately (economically and environmentally) used by the people in the state (a basic tenet of Republicanism, by the way).
I'm not advocating turning off the spigot to farming, and letting the rivers run wild- just suggesting that there are some extreme abuses of a limited resource that are being lumped together with some reasonable agricultural uses for corporate, profit-driven interests, with the interests of the environment being a tertiary consideration, at best. It's about balance.
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JEleazarian
Trad climber
Fresno CA
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Actually, apogee, we're on the same page. It's all about balance. The post above yours recognizes this. If we priced riparian water deliveries at marginal cost, the price farmers pay would rise. That's why I'd never get elected in these parts.
Actually, my proposal would go even further. My cherries relied on both ditch water (relatively cheap because it is subsidized) and ground water (less cheap, but the only cost I paid was the energy cost of pumping it). The problem is that the aquifer is, itself a scarce resource, and my pumping -- along with that of all the other San Joaquin Valley users -- depletes the water stored there. That's because we are, in effect, mining the water. Imagine a mineral deposit in which no one can exclude anyone else. That deposit would be overused because no one has any incentive to save it. If they don't mine it, some one else will. This is the classic economic problem set forth in "The Tragedy of the Commons," a paper read by untold thousands of upper division economics students.
We need some way of imposing the marginal cost of pumping groundwater -- including the cost of depleting the supply -- on users of groundwater. Now if my previous stance on subsidized riparian delivery makes me unelectable here, that policy would probably get me a pair of cement shoes!
John
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klk
Trad climber
cali
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hahahahaha!
What JE is proposing is the end of farming as we know it, and probably the complete collapse of the entire agribusiness of the western US and whatever it could take down with it!
JE, aren't you on the Board at UP? Do folks there know you're a radical?
Heh.
JE is mentioning pumping here for another reason: One of the ugliest aspects of our taxpayer-subsidized delivery of jillions of acre-feet of water to massive corporate entities is that those "farmers" are also legally entitled to pump groundwater out from underneath their own acreage. Some of them then sell that water at market rates to small farmers in the vicinity who don't have the pull, size or clout to get as much subsidized water as they need.
Technically, it's illegal as well as being economically and environmentally disastrous. But it's terrifically difficult to prosecute.
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guyman
Trad climber
Moorpark, CA.
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apogee.
Do you know that the rice yield/acre in the Sac area is about 3 times that of the next closest producer anywhere on earth.
And the rice produced is the most favored type for all rice eating folks world wide.
In California we grow enuf food to feed the USA and still export food to the world.
Many of the farmers are loosing walnut trees because, one year with to little water will kill the tree. A 75 year investment gone.
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franky
climber
Davis, CA
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Topic Author's Reply - Oct 9, 2009 - 03:12pm PT
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Well, here is a problem with your payment approach JE.
You are asking people to pay farmers to not destroy the environment. Similar to plans to pay loggers in Brazil to not chop down forest. My request is for you farmers to leave the environment alone, in it's natural state, to leave the tree standing. The farmers desire is to pump the water, and if it is a non sustainable rate they are pumping, it is the equivalent of chopping the tree down.
The panel of scientists would determine the maximum amount of water that could be removed from the system without doing damage to the environment. No water would ever, under any circumstances, be pumped beyond that limit. No single season of crop is worth that cost. Even if 50% of farmers can't farm in a given year, or given series of years, because of that. Bad things happen to go people, farming is a high risk/high reward activity.
I guess in those drought years, when they were out of business, they could receive some kind of welfare check, similar to paying them not to destroy the environment I suppose. So maybe I'm not so much against that.
I think farmers care a great deal about their land, but I think they can rationalize destroying other land better than almost anyone. The old stealing to feed a hungry family thing.
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Chaz
Trad climber
greater Boss Angeles area
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Irrigating crops is not the same as destroying the environment.
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franky
climber
Davis, CA
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Topic Author's Reply - Oct 9, 2009 - 03:19pm PT
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but it can be.
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JEleazarian
Trad climber
Fresno CA
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Franky, you state: "My request is for you farmers to leave the environment alone, in it's [sic] natural state. . . . The panel of scientists would determine the maximum amount of water that could be removed from the system without doing damage to the environment."
Does the environment's "natural state" include humanity? If not, you've detroyed agriculture everywhere, and condemned us all to die of starvation. If so, just what is its natural state? Agriculture is quite natural for human beings. In that case, what constitutes "doing damage to the environment?"
From your posts, it appears that you want an environment unaffected by the presence of humans. I don't because such an environment precludes our existence. As soon as you make room for our existence, you accept a certain amount of environmental change, and once you do, you're in my world of allocating scarce resources, not yours of preserving purity.
And klk, my proposal would not destroy agriculture as we know it. It would merely change it. Despite the very high cost of farming in California, we still have comparative advantages that allow us to farm profitably. (Oops, I forgot. Profit is evil.) Food prices will change a bit, though, and there will be less cotton planted here. Frankly, Valley farmers, and particularly the east side farmers that are losing their water over this particular matter, have been big supporters of ending all agricultural price supports. They're not in the business of "not growing cotton."
Contrary to popular belief, family farming is still alive and well here, and will continue to be as long as we can obtain water at a fair price.
John
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franky
climber
Davis, CA
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Topic Author's Reply - Oct 9, 2009 - 04:08pm PT
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Sure, humans effect the environment. I'm not objecting to the idea that it is all about allocation of resources and prioritizing. If I didn't think that was true, I'd be advocating zero water removal from the sacramento and san joaquin.
My point is that we cannot afford to "mine" the delta. Similar to the idea of mining groundwater, if we pump water out of the estuary at an unsustainable rate, unrecoverable damage will occur. There are no farms anywhere in the central valley that are worth that price.
That prioritization can't be left up to farmers. If it is, you get another Tulare Lake, Owens lake, Mono Lake (UC Davis may have saved that one), or any other body of water that people have pumped dry throughout the world. Sustainable pumping with no permanent damage, no species extinction, a functioning ecosystem. We can have all that, and still farm in the central valley, but some farmers are going to have to suffer. If you push it to an unsustainable rate, you have to cut back. Those guys who are lowest on the totem pole are going to get screwed, but that is no reason to keep going down our destructive path.
Farm all you can, people will study the system and tell you how much water it can afford to lose without causing irreparable harm. When that water is gone, the farm goes fallow. The farmer goes on welfare, because a rational citizen understands that farmers are important, but will be subject to periods of low production caused the nature, not environmentalists.
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