California drought: Why some farmers are 'exporting water' to China

[theHandpuppet]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-26124989
18 February 2014
California drought: Why some farmers are 'exporting water' to China
By Alastair Leithead

BBC News, Los Angeles

(excerpt)
It brings the desert alive with hundreds of hectares of lush green fields - much of it alfalfa hay, a water-hungry but nutritious animal feed which once propped up the dairy industry here, and is now doing a similar job in China.

"A hundred billion gallons of water per year is being exported in the form of alfalfa from California," argues Professor Robert Glennon from Arizona College of Law.

"It's a huge amount. It's enough for a year's supply for a million families - it's a lot of water, particularly when you're looking at the dreadful drought throughout the south-west."

Manuel Ramirez from K&M Press is an exporter in the Imperial Valley, and his barns are full of hay to be compressed, plastic-wrapped, packed directly into containers and driven straight to port where they are shipped to Asia and the Middle East.... MORE

[jsr]

1. Recommend

[Vinnie From Indy]

2. That just seems nuts that the Chinese are unable to

grow their own alfalfa or get it from a closer source.

[madville]

3. Not as crazy as the chicken

US-raised and slaughtered chickens shipped all the way to China to be processed into nuggets, then shipped all the way back here to be sold.

Or the Chinese frozen broccoli, grow, pick, and freeze broccoli in China and ship it all the way over here to sell for $1 a bag? How is that even possible?

[davidpdx]

5. Allowing them to bring stuff back into the US is a mistake

They are hauling thousands of tons at a time to make it affordable. Labor is cheap and they have very few regulations.

Here in Korea we get vegetables sometime from China and my wife and I go out of our way to avoid buying them. The water that is used for irrigation is grotesque.

[jsr]

7. Food quality in China is world-class

http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303870704579295570378526270

BEIJING— Wal-Mart Stores Inc. WMT -0.61% is recalling donkey meat sold at some of its China stores after government tests showed the meat contained the DNA of other animals.

The retailer said Thursday it will provide 50 yuan, or roughly $8.25, compensation to customers who bought the "Five Spice" donkey meat, and it is boosting DNA testing for meat products sold in its China stores. Authorities in China's eastern Shandong province said in late December that the retailer's product contained fox meat.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2535244/Chinese-police-raid-filthy-sheep-factory-butchers-injected-polluted-pond-water-carcasses-increase-weight.html

Seven members of a Chinese gang have been arrested for allegedly injecting dirty pond water into lamb meat to swell its weight and boost profits.

The suspects slaughtered up to 100 sheep per day at an illegal warehouse and allegedly pumped up to 6kg of bacteria-ridden water into the dead animals, China Central Television (CCTV) reported.

The meat was then sold at markets, food stalls and restaurants in major cities such as Guangzhou and Foshan.

[Recursion]

9. Or the leather in a sneaker. Cow is raised in the US,

and after it's slaughtered the hides and hoofs are sent to China where they get tanned and made into leather goods, and sent back here.

(Cow hides & hoofs are our number two agriculture export, after soybeans.)

[davidpdx]

4. The Chinese have environment problems as well

They have a problem with polluted water and hazy that probably makes growing it that prevents it from being feasible.

There are really no other countries big enough to import alfalfa from. The farmers have the choice as to what crop they want to plant and who to sell it to. I don't think it's particularly helpful, but there isn't much we can do about it.

[Recursion]

8. It only grows well in the Western US, Argentina, and southern Europe

Though graphic that puts more in the Midwest and Canadian plains than I had thought, so there's that.

The US is the Saudi Arabia of alfalfa; we produce nearly half of the world's crop. China does grow some alfalfa, but their fields can only produce one or two harvests in a year (Californian fields can produce one harvest a month).

[medeak]

6. am sickened after reading this

it's dead dead here on central coast and cattle are being sold as no alfalfa hay for sale. Other home in NV on Idaho border my rancher friends are begging for hay. Can't believe anyone has any alfalfa let alone selling it to China.

[theHandpuppet]

11. I'd circulate this article to all the ranchers you know

The only way to stop this is to get local support and expose this sham.

[Anansi1171]

10. K&R- just sending it to our Chinese betters?

[Jesus Malverde]

12. That just boggles the mind.

wow!

[Boudica the Lyoness]

13. We sold hay to Japan last year.

The hay has to be top quality for export. No rain on it. Good color. No weeds. Good protein etc. It's a rare crop that is export quality.

If a hay farmer can grow and put up a top quality crop of hay, it's only fair he sells it for the most money he can, when he can.

So often a hay crop is damaged by weather etc and we bite the bullet. We can work hard and put all our money into a crop, only to get it rained on when it's in the windrow, ready to be baled.........Then we have to sell it cheap....sometimes very cheaply. Bills still have to be paid.

It's very expensive to grow hay, what with irrigation costs, fuel, seed, fertilizer, equipment (tractors, swathers, harobeds, trucks etc etc). It's only fair we make some money when we can so we can continue to farm.