From a nytimes article "the valley is the world’s largest patch of Class 1 soil, the best there is. The 25-degree (or so) temperature swing from day to night is an ideal growing range for plants. The sun shines nearly 300 days a year. The eastern half of the valley (and the western, to some extent) uses ice melt from the Sierra as its water source, which means it doesn’t have the same drought and flood problems as the Midwest. The winters are cool, which offers a whole different growing season for plants that cannot take the summer heat. There’s no snow."

California is one of the best places in the world for many crops. Having little rain during the harvest season is a huge boon

Wine yo. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_wine

For the most part, that's a completely different part of the state.

By volume (though certainly not by quality), I assume the Central Valley is the largest producer. Warmer temperatures mean more production but often low quality stuff.

Not nearly the same area of the state...

You think two buck chuck is made from grapes grown in ritzy Napa valley? Large majority of California wine comes from grapes grown in the central valley.

* The Central Valley is California's largest wine region stretching for 300 miles (480 km) from the Sacramento Valley south to the San Joaquin Valley. This one region produces nearly 75% of all California wine grapes and includes many of California's bulk, box and jug wine producers like Gallo, Franzia and Bronco Wine Company.*

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_wine#Wine_regions

80% of California's water is used by agriculture.

This is false. I don't blame you because it is often repeated. But agriculture only accounts for about 40% of California's water use.

In an average year, about 39% of California's water consumption, or 34.1 million acre-feet, is used for agricultural purposes.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_in_California#Uses_of_wa...

It's actually not false. If you read the article you posted, you will see that half of the water is used for environmental uses. That means is not used by humans, but "let go".

So if you sum the rest, agriculture does use 80% of the water used by humans.

Directing water to a tree to grow almonds, and directing it to a stream to support the delta smelt are both human directed usages. You can't just count the usages you don't like to make the number look big.

If you're looking at it this way, that every single stream is managed, then yes, you're right. I rather think that we develop only the water sources that make the most sense and leave the rest be.

This way we could talk about the incredible amounts of gold that is diluted in oceans that we could harvest "anytime" [0]. It's around 21x more than humans mined in the whole history.

[0] http://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/gold.html

Also from that link:

"Solely relying on these statewide volumes is controversial because they don't consider the fact that most of the volume of water used for environmental purposes includes flows down Wild and Scenic Rivers in the North Coast where there is no practical way to recover it for either agricultural or urban use because it lacks many connections to the statewide water supply system."

No its not a joke. Central Valley used to be a big marshy area https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sacramento%E2%80%93San_Joaquin...

It still would be if it weren't for the levies. Especially right now.

The problem isn't that farming occurs, it's that some stupid crops are grown in California--like alfalfa. It uses a ton of water and it's not very profitable.

But the state can grow a lot of crops that are worth the water usage.

All that is needed is to price water with a market mechanism rather than first come, first serve free water.

To be fair we make some of the best wine in the world. So there is some merit...

Obviously you've never read a Steinbeck book.

Not just residents, but also states around it, as well as Mexico.

Depends on the crop.