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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   31625 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of January 9, 2023

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Yes, but folks in cooler states aren’t going to consent to having their water diverted to the Southwest and southern California.

I don't this this is an issue either. Alfafa growers and dairy farmers in California might be in trouble, but there is ample water for human settlement. The biggest use is agriculture which would become much more efficient if water was priced higher.

Yes, but folks in cooler states aren’t going to consent to having their water diverted to the Southwest and southern California.

"Folks" don't have large amounts of water to divert. Agriculture uses c. 90% of the water essentially everywhere, and in the US that means large commercial agribusiness. Large businesses can be paid off - cheaply if they are using the water to irrigate low-value crops like alfalfa. Current water law in the US west mostly prohibits this type of transaction, but laws can be changed.

Why do you think alfalfa is low value? Should hay the primary input for milk and secondary input for beef and eggs be scarcer, more expensive? $7 for a dozen eggs is bad enough right now.

I didn't say anything about should, I said alfalfa was low value. A quick google says that alfalfa prices are about $240 per ton, and this is considered scandalously high with the long-term average price sub-$200. Wheat is $7.40 per bushel, which works out at about $270 per ton. Most crops worth irrigating are worth more than wheat, not less. Wikipedia says that alfalfa is 18% of California's irrigation water and 4% of the farm revenue - also consistent with low value.

I have no idea why eggs in California are $7 a dozen - it looks like they are quite a bit cheaper on the east coast. In the UK we pay about $3 a dozen, and our hens don't eat subsidised alfalfa. Does the $7 include reparations for black hens or something equally stupid?

Eggs in the US in general underwent a massive spike from a flu outbreak that wiped out a bunch of hens. The point of comparison is that minor absolute value but high percentage increases in price on common, high volume items like eggs greatly affect the day to day of consumers. Adding on to the current scarcity/pricing concerns for those items seems ill-advised to me but I'm economically insulated from it and will probably profit regardless. Alfalfa is a major hay crop for boosting productivity of dairy cows lowering the costs of milk among other uses for it in feeds. Constrain that crop and you'll have downstream effects on prices of things people care about like milk.

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