LETTER: On urban water use and farming

Regarding the March 30 “River flows to farming first” article and the related April 1 editorial:

The trouble with tradeoffs is that we rarely discuss them. A false dichotomy is often presented to us in most media between farming and urban water use. Water discussions usually have more to do with politics and current fads than they do with science.

The average person has no idea where his or her food comes from. It shouldn’t be any news flash that agriculture uses a lot of water. But because we live so far away from farming, we are surprised. That doesn’t mean that farmers do not need to conserve in these times as well. However, just as it takes between 20 to 100 gallons of maple sap to make a gallon of maple syrup, it takes significant amounts of land, water, energy, labor and resources to produce our food. If food is not produced here, where will it come from?

Look at the labels on food that you buy and realize that there is also some gimmickry in the labelling. For example, produce that I love to consume is distributed by a California company but actually produced in Peru and Chile lately. As long as you are realistic about needing to import your meat and food from other countries such as Brazil and Mexico and paying higher prices for it, you will be happy.

We are in the process of outsourcing our agriculture. Look at that. Food has to come from somewhere, and there is a complex process to produce the food you want.