Readers React: Why not just send California’s water to China?

I suppose it is a good thing that California can sell alfalfa to China, in part as payment for all of the cheap items that fill our dollar-only stores. But notice that we are in effect also exporting California’s water. (“U.S. farmers making hay with alfalfa exports to China,” June 8)

In a state that is in the middle of a years-long drought, using scarce water to grow feed for China’s dairy industry enriches American industrial farmers but may not be the best idea for the state. I am offended every time I drive in the Central Valley on the 5 Freeway to the San Francisco Bay Area and see cynical agribusiness signs that say things such as “food grows where water flows” or that blame the federal government for starving Californians by not providing larger water allotments.

When much of that water goes to grow alfalfa, almonds or other water-intensive crops for export and enriches industrial farmers, it is hard for me to feel sorry for them.

Henry Hespenheide

Hermosa Beach

Now that’s rich: Someone from the Cato Institute thinks the U.S. is “in an ideal position to take advantage of global growing food demand.” Remember, this think tank is a Koch-funded outfit that minimizes how much we’ll be affected by climate change. Thanks for the tip!

When the Great Plains are a permanent Dust Bowl in the next few decades and the migration of the grain-growing region northward crashes into the solid rock of the Canadian Shield, that will give new meaning to the Cato Institute scholar’s “growing food demand.”

Go ahead, make your billions while you can, agribusiness, sucking the Ogallala aquifer dry. You will be eating dust soon enough. What will your billions buy you (or us) then?

Curtis Horton

Pasadena

California has a drought, and alfalfa needs huge amounts of water. Enterprising farmers in the state are capitalizing on higher prices and exporting alfalfa to China.

Let’s cut to the chase: Just export water to China and let them grow their own while we choke on sand and weeds and our own dairy industry becomes unsustainable.

And why wasn’t the water factor mentioned in this front-page article?

Paul Holmes

Laguna Beach