She’s dead wrong about San Francisco diverting farm water. The city financed the damming of Hetch Hetchy back in the early 20th century. The Central Valley can cry 😭 about water diversion to LA and *parts* of the Bay Area, but San Francisco locked up water rights to Yosemite Valley almost a century ago. Long before the “climate wars” over water.
As shit (and I mean complete shit) as San Francisco city government is today, they were ruthlessly efficient and forward thinking back in the day.
She might be incorrect about SF, but she's pretty spot on about the war on local farmers. I immediately thought of the Netherlands when I saw this.
Not going to disagree with your sentiment. California state government deems cities a higher commercial priority due to the higher commercial tax revenues from urban businesses. Of course, the ruling democrat party represents those urban areas. Unfortunately, this creates a speculative incentive to buy foreclosed or heavily in debt farmland out and fallow it for drought incentives. This creates further stress and pressure on small farmers as private equity seeking easy wins drives them out. Drought is very over now, though, after historic rainfall this winter.
https://www.cbsnews.com/sacramento/news/ca-program-pays-farmers-fallow-fields-preserve-water/
