Is Growing Food Wasting Water? YES, YES and YES!

As Governor Brown makes water conservation permanent; I couldn’t help but think about the frequent almost handmade looking signs big agricultural conglomerates ( BIG AG) have ensured are placed every fifty or so miles on Highway 5 from Sacramento to Los Angeles. Tugging on your natural human survival instincts of fear of a lack of food, they ask the question: “Is growing food wasting water?” I can't help but scream inside my head, yes, yes and yes!

Today’s reality in California is such that water conservation has to become a permanent way of life and we need to reconsider not only residential usage but agricultural usage too. Regarding agricultural usage, we really need to consider four issues. Three are given what we now know just plain common sense. The fourth has political implications which may make some people uncomfortable. First of all, growing too much food that it drives the commodity price so low that Americans overbuy food and 25% of food purchased is wasted before it is even eaten makes the water used to produce that food an extremely wasteful use of a finite resource.

Secondly, eating too much food because food is overproduced and so the commodity price is so low that people eat too much, get fat and get sick leading to high healthcare costs means, the water to produce that food is not only wasted but extremely expensive in the long term.

Thirdly, producing food that disproportionately needs a large amount of water like the much written about almonds when water is limited and instead should be reserved for less water intensive food production is also really wasteful.

Finally as I noted above, the socio-political implications of food produced in a country of artificially low water prices for export and consumption in a country with much higher water costs is wasteful and really needs to be considered in a much larger context.

In conclusion, prioritizing water conservation as Governor Brown has recently signed into law is imperative but we also need to start considering that giving any kind of preferential water rights and prices for agricultural food production really benefits ONLY BIG AG, not the public and not the small farmers! Although of course BIG AG wants to make us think we should support their profit margins with signs saying “Is growing food wasting water?” The real truth is that the answer is an unqualified YES!