Ulyks t1_iwcsqao wrote on November 14, 2022 at 6:13 PM

Reply to comment by omegasix321 in Farmers in China and Uganda move to high-yielding, cost-saving perennial rice by tonymmorley

Making water more expensive would quickly make that trade unprofitable.

Water scarcity is real. It's better to make prices reflect It's true value.

omegasix321 t1_iwd4zf3 wrote on November 14, 2022 at 7:32 PM

Agreed, though I'd only extend this to water used for agricultural and entertainment purposes. We really shouldn't be charging regular people extra for a daily necessity like water.

Also strict limits and regulations on the import and export of water internationally. To avoid foreign governments from writing blank cheques to keep buying water on a mass scale.

Ulyks t1_iwft03z wrote on November 15, 2022 at 8:48 AM

I don't think forbidding the sale of water internationally would be a good idea.

Many places like Hong Kong heavily depend on imports of water.

They could build desalination plants but those are often very polluting as they don't have space for more passive solar powered desalination systems.

But farmers in California for example pay only 70$ for an acre-foot of water. An acre-foot is 1233m³ and is enough for about 10 families for a year (that pay on average 70$ per month).

So farmers are paying less than 1% of the price of the water.

Maybe bringing that up to 100% would be too large of a shock and put all farmers out of business but it's clear they will have to pay a larger share in the future.

Perhaps they can make exceptions for locally consumed foods to incentivize that. But that is a bit hard to track and verify. And I think more expensive food would most likely be consumed locally anyway.

omegasix321 t1_iwg1dc3 wrote on November 15, 2022 at 10:55 AM

Not forbid, just heavily regulate. Make sure you settle all domestic uses for water first and then sell abroad. But only to the point where it can be easily replenished in a short amount of time.

Right now we need to focus on our own needs and replenishing our reservoirs more than anything, otherwise ‘nobody’ is getting water.