California Governor Jerry Brown has announced that private citizens and small businesses — among others — will have their water usage restricted, monitored, and subject to heavy fines if state agents determine that too much water has been used. Noticeably absent from the list of those subject to restrictions are the largest users of water, the farmers.
Agriculture accounts for 80 percent of the state’s water consumption, but 2 percent of the state’s economy. To spell it out a little more clearly: Under Jerry’s Brown water plan, it’s fine to use a gallon of subsidized water to grow a single almond in a desert, but if you take a shower that’s too long, prepare to be fined up to $500 per day.
There Is No Market Price for Water
The fact that the growers, who remain a powerful interest group in California, happen to be exempt from water restrictions reminds us that water is not allocated according to any functional market system, but is allocated through political means by politicians and government agents.
When pressed as to why the farmers got a free pass, Jerry Brown was quick to fall back on the old standbys: California farms are important to the economy, and California farms produce a lot of food. Thus, the rules don’t apply to them. If translated from politico-speak, however, what Brown really said was this: “I have unilaterally decided that agriculture is more important than other industries and consumers in California, including industries and households that may use water much more efficiently, and which may be willing to pay much more for water.”
In California, those who control the political system have ensured that water will not go to those who value it most highly. Instead, water will be allocated in purely arbitrary fashion based on who has the most lobbyists and the most political power.
Numerous economists at mises.org and elsewhere (see here and here and here) have already pointed out that the true solution to water shortages lies in allowing a market price to determine allocation — and in allowing there to be a market in water — just as there is a market in energy, food, and other goods essential to life and health. Supporters of government-controlled water claim that billionaires will hoard all the water if this is allowed, although it remains unclear why the billionaires haven’t also hoarded all the oil, coal, natural gas, clothing, food, and shoes for themselves, since all of these daily essentials are traded using market prices, and all are used daily by people of ordinary means.
City Water vs. Agricultural Water
For a clue as to how divorced from reality is current water policy in California, we need only look at the government-determined “price” of water there. Even under current conditions, water remains very inexpensive in California, but for the record, city dwellers have historically paid much, much higher prices for water than growers.
For example, according to this study, water for residents of San Francisco rose by 50 percent from 2010 to 2014, but residents were still paying about 0.8 cents per gallon for water. In Los Angeles, the price growth was a little less over the same period, but the Los Angeles price was also low, coming in a little over 0.6 cents per gallon. City dwellers are told that water is incredibly scarce, but as Kathryn Shelton and Richard McKenzie have noted, the price of water is so low that virtually no one even knows the per-gallon price.
But how much do growers pay for their water? In a recent LA Times article contending that growers “aren’t the water enemy,” it was noted that growers are now paying $1,000 per acre foot. This is supposed to convince us that water prices are incredibly high. But how does this compare to city prices? An acre-foot is about 326,000 gallons of water, so if we do the arithmetic, we find that growers who pay $1,000 for an acre-foot are paying about 0.3 cents per gallon for their water. That’s a little less than half as much as the city users are paying.
Now, city water is treated potable water, so we might expect a premium for city water. Historically, however, the gap between city prices and agricultural prices is much, much greater. Bloomberg notes that as of 2014, the price of water had risen to $1,100 “from about $140 a year ago” in the Fresno area. Going back further, we find that in 2001 many farmers were paying $70 per acre foot. Prices well below $1,000 are far more typical of the past several decades than the $1,000 to $3,000 per acre-foot many growers now say they pay. In fact, if we see what the per-gallon price would be for a $140 acre-foot of water, we find that a city dweller could use fifty gallons per day at a monthly price of 64 cents per month, or a per-gallon price of 0.04 cents................................................................
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mises.org/library/drought-and-failure-big-government-california