California’s Drought Could Upend America’s Entire Food System (Citrus: 2015, how much)

[beasley106]

Since this is related to the drought you guys are experiencing here is an interesting article I found on how our governments agriculture policy is detrimental to not only California but the entire country since it discourages local farming of fruits and vegetables thus causing the rest of the country to be over reliant on California's water supplies for farming.

California’s Drought Could Upend America’s Entire Food System

On April 1, California Governor Jerry Brown stood in a field in the Sierra Nevada Mountains, beige grass stretching out across an area that should have been covered with five feet of snow. The Sierra’s snowpack — the frozen well that feeds California’s reservoirs and supplies a third of its water — was just eight percent of its yearly average. That’s a historic low for a state that has become accustomed to breaking drought records.
In the middle of the snowless field, Brown took an unprecedented step, mandating that urban agencies curtail their water use by 25 percent, a move that would save some 500 billion gallons of water by February of 2016 — a seemingly huge amount, until you consider that California’s almond industry, for example, uses more than twice that much water annually. Yet Brown’s mandatory cuts did not touch the state’s agriculture industry.
Agriculture requires water, and large-scale agriculture, like that in California, requires large amounts of water. So when Governor Brown came under fire for exempting farmers from the mandatory cuts — farmers use 80 percent of the state’s available water — he was unmoved.
“They’re not watering their lawn or taking long showers,” he told ABC’s “The Week” the Sunday after he announced the restrictions. “They’re providing most of the fruits and vegetables of America to a significant part of the world.”
Almonds get a lot of the attention when it comes to California’s agriculture and water, but the state is responsible for a dizzying diversity of produce. Eaten a salad recently? Odds are the lettuce, carrots, and celery came from California. Have a soft spot for stone fruit? California produces 84 percent of the country’s fresh peaches and 94 percent of the country’s fresh plums. It produces 99 percent of the artichokes grown in the United States, and 94 percent of the broccoli. As spring begins to creep in, almost half of asparagus will come from California.

.......

While I can understand why crops such as oranges, avocados, almonds, etc can only be grown in California due to the specific climate that supports those crops, it always seemed stupid to me to have places such as the Central Valley grow most of the peaches, broccoli, asparagus, lettuce, tomatoes, carrots, celery, etc sold in the US when those crops can just as easily be grown elsewhere in places such as the Midwest where there is more ample water supply. The only reason why most of those crops are grown in the Central Valley in the first place is because evidently the US government actively discourages farmers from diversifying their crop yields, instead encouraging farmers in the Midwest to grow commodity crops such as corn or soybeans for use as animal feed or as high fructose corn syrup thru incentives.

[505HPC6Z06]

Watering crops from "recycled" water bought by farmers from oil companies could "upend the american people".

[Ruth4Truth]

Good point, OP. The Gummint also pays mid-West farmers to NOT grow certain commodity crops that the US is (or was) over-producing. So the entire agriculture system and policies need to be revisited. But one factor in that is that CA's water supply up until now has been predictable; the state has this huge water-delivery system. Mid-West farmers have been dependent on rainfall. Parts of the mid-West are able to tap into the Oglala Aquifer (which has been over-tapped since decades ago), but other parts don't have access to that. So that would effect choice of crops, I would think.

[Des-Lab]

'Nuff said. And we are actually supposed to feel sorry for them?

[NoMoreSnowForMe]

Supply and demand will always rule. If it becomes more profitable to grow something else in another state, then those states will grow something else.

[beasley106]

Originally Posted by NoMoreSnowForMe

Supply and demand will always rule. If it becomes more profitable to grow something else in another state, then those states will grow something else.

Well if the Federal Government were not subsidizing corn and soybeans to the extent that they have you would see more farms outside of California diversifying their crop yields, which is what the article I posted has pointed out. As of right now many farmers in the Midwest suffer huge penalties if they even try to diversify their crop yields outside of corn and soybeans. That being said it certainly is profitable to grow some of the crops currently grown in the Central Valley elsewhere since other states such as Michigan are already one of the top US producers for certain fruits and vegetables such as cherries, grapes, apples, peaches, asparagus, etc.

[NoMoreSnowForMe]

Originally Posted by beasley106

Well if the Federal Government were not subsidizing corn and soybeans to the extent that they have you would see more farms outside of California diversifying their crop yields, which is what the article I posted has pointed out. As of right now many farmers in the Midwest suffer huge penalties if they even try to diversify their crop yields outside of corn and soybeans. That being said it certainly is profitable to grow some of the crops currently grown in the Central Valley elsewhere since other states such as Michigan are already one of the top US producers for certain fruits and vegetables such as cherries, grapes, apples, peaches, asparagus, etc.

Baloney. They don't suffer penalties. It's just more profitable for them to take the govt subsidies than to plant anything else.

If/when it's more cost-effective to plant something instead of take a subsidy, that's what they'll do.

[urbanologist]

No it won't. California is not the only major citrus producing state in the country. As a matter in fact, when it comes to being a major producer of oranges and grapefruit Florida exceeds California as a majority producer. We also import from Brazil so no it's not the going end everything. However, the drought may cause the prices to go up due to a drop in production but will not effect Florida since it isn't experiencing a drought like California. Texas is also a major producer. The drought will cause prices to go up but other parts of the country already produce most of the country's food. Since we also live in a global economy other countries like Mexico, Brazil, Guatemala etc. also ship produce into the US so no the claim in the article that it's the end all is completely false.


Florida is the largest producer of oranges, accounting for about 70 percent of total U.S. production, and of grapefruit, producing nearly 65 percent of total production. California is the largest producer of lemons, producing more than 92 percent of production, and of tangerines, accounting for about 80 percent of production. Source: Citrus Profile - Agricultural Marketing Resource Center

Another words, yes, you will still have your orange juice but it could be a little more expensive depending on where that company get's most of it's citrus from.

[person222]

how much is chem trails causing the drought? Look up chem trails and drought for more info. And if chem trails are causing it not to rain- why the heck don't they stop the chem trails???

UPDATED: Engineered Drought Catastrophe Continues, Target California » UPDATED: Engineered Drought Catastrophe Continues, Target California | Geoengineering Watch

[bigdumbgod]

Originally Posted by person222

how much is chem trails causing the drought? Look up chem trails and drought for more info. And if chem trails are causing it not to rain- why the heck don't they stop the chem trails???

UPDATED: Engineered Drought Catastrophe Continues, Target California » UPDATED: Engineered Drought Catastrophe Continues, Target California | Geoengineering Watch

You already opened a thread with this; take it up there.