From: spike66 (spike66@attbi.com)
Date: Sun Jun 16 2002 - 18:09:33 MDT
Mike Lorrey wrote:
>Colin Hales wrote:
>
>>What is so precious about the US Farmer (or some segment thereof) that it
>>requires such welfare state privelege? I don't get it.
>>Or is it just a really really squeaky wheel that gets a lot of oil?
>>
>
>While I'm not generally sympathetic to subsidies, welfare, or
>protectionism, there is a rather valid argument to be made that some
>people like to live in an area with a nice quality of life, a bucolic
>scenery and landscape, peaceful neighbors who are happy that you still
>work the land like your forefathers did, etc...
>
We all missed something here. I can think of a perfectly legitimate
ulterior motive by the Fed for growing rice in the Taxifornia
central valley. Rice requires a lot of water. By arranging for a
water intensive crop in a desert, we form a massive solar powered
distillation facility. The farmers divert water from the Sacramento
River, flood the fields, hot dry winds evaporate most of it, the
moisture is carried up into the mountains by the prevailing west to
east winds and falls as snow, up high enough to where it can be
recovered and piped into the cities. It is far easier to subsidize
farmers, (many of which can be *family* farmers, far less evil
than the same land growing the same crops but owned by big
evil corporations) than to fight the political powers that would
oppose dams.
The actual rice produced is immaterial. They could throw it
into the sea. The real *value* is the fresh water, getting back
into the atmosphere before it would otherwise run down the
Sacramento River and be lost in the SF Bay. So the reason it
makes perfect sense to grow rice in a desert is that the
desert/Sierra range combination forms a great water distillation
facility. So I changed my mind, go ahead, subsidize those
farmers to flood that desert. spike
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