💧California's Water

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Have you ever visited the United States? If you ever entered a grocery store then, statistically speaking, half of all the fruits and vegetables on the shelves come from one state.

As the top US agricultural state, California produces more food and crops than whole countries like Australia and Pakistan. Over 400 different crops are planted across the state, generating nearly $60B in revenue – and employing over 850K people – each year.

California has a dominance you couldn't imagine in some crops, like 100% of all the almonds grown in North America, or 80% of the global supply. And commercially, crops like strawberries can generate over 100x the revenue of midwestern crops like corn or soy.

Naturally, water is needed to keep the world fed. Agriculture is the single biggest destination of the state's water system, driven primarily by growing more water-intensive crops like alfalfa and those delicious aforementioned almonds.

Given the vitality of water to the industry, and Californian farming to the world's food supply, protecting the water supply is crucial. Businesses, nonprofit organizations, and the state government alike have accordingly rolled out measures to maximize water efficiency.

There are some early positive results to report. As measured by crops produced in constant dollars divided by total water use, California's water efficiency rose by a third from 2008 to 2021. And when adjusting for inflation, total farm economic output was 23% higher in 2018 than in 1980, while food-production water use was cut by 15%.

Clearly, more can be done, and the key lies in efficient irrigation practices that optimize water use while still enabling us to feed the world. Our partner this week, Kilimo, is a Latin American climate-tech company that helps optimize water use all around Latin America and now California. In partnership with companies that have water-security goals, Kilimo incentivizes farmers to reduce their consumption without losing productivity through payments for ecosystem services.

Through rethinking and modernizing the state irrigation and planting system, actors like Kilimo can help keep Californian farms afloat—thus keeping the world well-fed.

Comment of the Week 🗣️

Ignacio shares a reasonable theory about why behind the US, Ireland is Mexico’s 2nd top recipient of Swift messages (aka international transfers).

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