From the Wall Street Journal:
Parched in the West but Shipping Water to China, Bale by Bale
In 2012, the drought-stricken Western United States will ship more than 50 billion gallons of water to China. This water will leave the country embedded in alfalfa—most of it grown in California—and is destined to feed Chinese cows. The strange situation illustrates what is wrong about how we think, or rather don't think, about water policy in the U.S.
In connection with government-led initiatives to improve the Chinese people's diet, China has massively expanded its dairy industry. Even though a large segment of the population is lactose intolerant, Chinese consumers are responding with enthusiasm. Milk consumption has tripled in 10 years and is expected to increase another 50% by 2015. This means millions more cows on the mainland, and millions more tons of cattle feed.
But despite China's vast landmass, pasturage is relatively scarce—and so the Chinese are buying alfalfa, particularly from the U.S. The trade is booming. Alfalfa exports to China from America ballooned to 177,423 metric tons in 2011 from 2,321 metric tons in 2007, and they are on pace to exceed 380,000 metric tons in 2012.
Importing a feed crop from halfway around the world might seem inefficient, but the trade imbalance between the two countries has made it cost-effective. For every two shipping containers of Chinese-made pajamas, televisions and other consumer goods unloaded at the California ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles, one container usually returns to China empty.
Or that used to be the case. Now shipping companies are filling those containers with alfalfa. The result: It now costs twice as much (about $45 per ton) to truck alfalfa from a Southern California farm to a dairy in California's Central Valley as it does to ship it from Long Beach to Beijing.
Chinese demand has prompted alfalfa prices to double in the past two years. Farmers and investors alike are rushing to convert lands to the crop, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture is promoting the development of this new export market. Ninety-nine percent of the exported alfalfa comes from a handful of Western states, especially California.
But the most curious consequence of this export market involves water. Alfalfa is a water-guzzling crop—and the water embedded in the alfalfa that the U.S. will export to China in 2012 is enough to supply the annual needs of roughly 500,000 families.
Southern California's Imperial Irrigation District gets its water from the Colorado River, 82 miles to the east. Alfalfa farmers in the district use as much as 50% more water than growers in other areas of the state due to scorching heat, salty soil and, perhaps most important, their legal rights to an enormous quantity of cheap water. This single irrigation district controls more than 20% of the total annual flow of the Colorado River. Remarkably, the district's water rights are 10 times higher than that of the entire state of Nevada.
Las Vegas has become so desperate for water that the Southern Nevada Water Authority, which serves the greater metro area, has paid residents $200 million to conserve water by ripping out their lawns. It also has proposed building a $3 billion pipeline to import groundwater from hundreds of miles away. The pipeline would deliver less than half of the water the Imperial Irrigation District is expected to ship to China in alfalfa bales this year....MORE
