California Survey Confirms Olive Oil Boom

[bellalunatic]

Originally Posted by smokingGun

I don't think Cali should be going down the olive oil route. We really need to be decreasing acreage devoted to large-scale agriculture and instead encouraging higher value-added industries. A disproportionate percent of our state's economy is dependent on agriculture, creating long-term probs like water scarcity/importation issues and serving as a magnet for illegal immigrant workers.

That's a nutty concept. California provides 90% of the country's produce!

[californio sur]

Originally Posted by bellalunatic

That's a nutty concept. California provides 90% of the country's produce!

There are some posters who exhibit remarkable ignorance about California & don't even realize how important the state is in feeding the world.

[jovial gent]

Olives make perfect sense for the climate here. Dropping rice and cotton makes a lot of sense. Sad to see even Saudi Arabia has more common sense here than CA when it comes to water intensive crops...

Saudi Arabia scraps wheat growing to save water | Reuters

[kettlepot]

Originally Posted by majoun

Olives, OTOH, make more sense for the climate ; when global warming hits they can always be grown further north in the state.

Olives already grow at the very northern end of the Central Valley. I've seen olive groves growing in the agricultural land around Redding.

Originally Posted by californio sur

As far as rice and cotton; I disagree that California should stop growing these crops since the state exports both to the nation and the world. The rice fields in the Sacramento valley also provide a great habitat for migrating birds on the West Coast causeway from Canada to Mexico.

I agree with the others, rice and cotton crops are for the most part a drain on the state's water resources. There might be a case to make for some rice production in the delta region simply because these delta lands would be flooded anyway. But if that's not the case, then both rice and cotton should be replaced by higher value crops.