Your Contribution to the California Drought

[MohRokTah]

Your Contribution to the California Drought

The average American consumes more than 300 gallons of California water each week by eating food that was produced there.

California farmers produce more than a third of the nation’s vegetables and two-thirds of its fruits and nuts. To do that, they use nearly 80 percent of all the water consumed in the state. It is the most stubborn part of the crisis: To fundamentally alter how much water the state uses, all Americans may have to give something up.

The portions of foods shown here are grown in California and represent what average Americans, including non-Californians, eat in a week. We made an estimate of the amount of water it takes to grow each portion to give you a sense of your contribution to the California drought.

The estimates include the amount of water used to make derivative products. For example, grape consumption includes not just fresh grapes, but also wine, jam and juice.

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New York Times Article

Shocking how much water is used to produce such a small amount of food, but when you grow that food in a fairly arid environment, irrigation becomes extremely important. This is not a sustainable model.

[Rex]

1. It seems strange to me that such a progressive state is ignoring the elephant in the room.

Same thing is going on here in Texas, sadly a not so progressive state.

[MohRokTah]

2. Agriculture is big business and has a strong lobby.

Thus, big ag goes to the head of the line for water. Everybody else gets trickled on.

[AZ Progressive]

6. Jerry Brown has also been an advocate of fracking

He's just another corrupt politician.

[Ron Green]

3. "True cost accounting" -

something capitalism routinely forgets to use.

[MohRokTah]

4. If only Congress would use it.

Using the true cost to the commons for various industries would dramatically alter the tax code.

[frazzled]

5. They forgot to mention

Pot.

A single marijuana plant consumes 6 gallons of water per DAY. Multiply that times the millions of plants being grown in the state times the number of days in a growing cycle, and you're looking at major, major water usage.

Let's translate that into NYT numbers. A single pot plant uses 42 gallons of water per week. It should probably be on the list.

http://www.motherjones.com/tom-philpott/2014/04/your-pot-habit-sucks-salmon