LeakBird

(Photo Courtesy of Old-Photos.Blogspot.com)

Drought and water shortages may drive up the cost of food in America this year, before the Fed’s printing press can even produce symptoms of inflation. Though Peter Gleick may focus on “water footprinting”, David Zetland says it’s not the core issue.

The core issue is price. And price needs to reflect water’s (now undervalued) scarcity.

What with California’s Central Valley only delivering half its usual abundance of lettuce this year (2009), food security has come to the fore and we are likely to see significant food price increases across the nation. Last year only 40% of the water norm was delivered to farmers, and this year it’s set to be 15%.

“Taking water from a farmer is like taking a pipe from a plumber,” said Giacone, a fourth-generation farmer in the tiny community of Mendota. “How do you conduct business?”

I wonder what food prices will look like when inflation hits (credit crisis hits water crisis), due to the Fed printing money like mad over the last few months?

And the poor farmers are burning through their reserves drilling 100s of feet for new groundwater sources. There’s an air of desperation. Sometimes I wonder how much we respect our farmers? In China, for example, at least in olden times before the Emperor was dethroned in 1911, the farmer was revered as the person of highest cultural significance because he put food on the table of the nation.

Well, taking away water from the farmer is a precursor to disaster, unmitigated disaster. And we need to act fast.

But there’s a good thing to come out of this. And it matches most succinctly with the spirit and flavor of the Forbes op-ed Mr. Zetland wrote entitled “The Water Shortage Myth” in July of last year.

That message can be captured by these lines: “If you wanna use more water, you’re gonna pay for it, and it’s going to be reflected in everything you buy.”

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