water is amazingly cheap, especially to farmers

[Mike Oliker]

Water prices to agriculture are amazingly low.  I pulled a number off an
Alabama website (complaining that subsidized water in the west is killing AL
ag): $5-15 /acre foot for agriculture, $200-$600/acre foot for
municipalities.  There are 326,000 gallons in an acre-foot of water, so 1
thousand gallons costs $0.015 to $0.03 for farmers, while it costs $0.60 to
$1.80 for city folk.  The cost of meat would then have to carry only four to
twelve cents per pound at 2500 gallons/pound.  Even at low end city prices,
it would only add $1.50/pound.  Meat producers may be covering the twelve
cents.
 
http://www.atmos.uah.edu/public/msu/Ag-Blackbelt-Com.ppt
 
It also suggests that water is incredibly cheap.  The high end municipal
price is around the current cost of desalination, roughly $2/thousand
gallons.  If we started to pay the real, unsubsidized cost of water, and
allowed people to sell their water rights, we might find we have plenty of
water.
 
-Mike Oliker
 
Message: 1
Date: Wed, 16 Aug 2006 18:31:39 -0400
From: "Martin C. Martin" <[hidden email]>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] My biggest complaint about ethanol as automobile
      fuel
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
      <friam at redfish.com>
Message-ID: <44E39CCB.5050707 at martincmartin.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed
 
 
 
Bill Eldridge wrote:
>
 
> Sorry to switch subjects, but from Steve Boyan:
>
>     I was wrong. If I had known that for every pound of beef I did not
>     eat, I would save anywhere from 2,500 to 5,000 gallons of water, I
>     would have been moved.
 
Why doesn't a pound of beef cost more than 2500 gallons of water?
Wouldn't ADM (or whoever cares for the cow) have to pay for that much water?
To make a profit, wouldn't they have to charge more than their costs?
 
Confused,
Martin
 
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[Giles Bowkett]

The problem with that is there's an enormous difference between
removing particular legal restrictions and creating a genuine free
market.

On 8/18/06, Mike Oliker <mike.oliker at comcast.net> wrote:

>
>
> Water prices to agriculture are amazingly low.  I pulled a number off an
> Alabama website (complaining that subsidized water in the west is killing AL
> ag): $5-15 /acre foot for agriculture, $200-$600/acre foot for
> municipalities.  There are 326,000 gallons in an acre-foot of water, so 1
> thousand gallons costs $0.015 to $0.03 for farmers, while it costs $0.60 to
> $1.80 for city folk.  The cost of meat would then have to carry only four to
> twelve cents per pound at 2500 gallons/pound.  Even at low end city prices,
> it would only add $1.50/pound.  Meat producers may be covering the twelve
> cents.
>
> http://www.atmos.uah.edu/public/msu/Ag-Blackbelt-Com.ppt
>
> It also suggests that water is incredibly cheap.  The high end municipal
> price is around the current cost of desalination, roughly $2/thousand
> gallons.  If we started to pay the real, unsubsidized cost of water, and
> allowed people to sell their water rights, we might find we have plenty of
> water.
>
> -Mike Oliker
>
> Message: 1
> Date: Wed, 16 Aug 2006 18:31:39 -0400
> From: "Martin C. Martin" <martin at martincmartin.com>
> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] My biggest complaint about ethanol as automobile
>       fuel
> To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
>       <friam at redfish.com>
> Message-ID: <44E39CCB.5050707 at martincmartin.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed
>
>
>
> Bill Eldridge wrote:
> >
>
> > Sorry to switch subjects, but from Steve Boyan:
> >
> >     I was wrong. If I had known that for every pound of beef I did not
> >     eat, I would save anywhere from 2,500 to 5,000 gallons of water, I
> >     would have been moved.
>
> Why doesn't a pound of beef cost more than 2500 gallons of water?
> Wouldn't ADM (or whoever cares for the cow) have to pay for that much water?
>  To make a profit, wouldn't they have to charge more than their costs?
>
> Confused,
> Martin
>
> ============================================================
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>
>

--
Giles Bowkett
http://www.gilesgoatboy.org