California-Grown Coffee Is Becoming the State's Next Gold Mine

Re:California-Grown Coffee Is Becoming the State's Next Gold... by seanalltogether on Saturday February 17, 2018 @02:24PM (#16402246)

Alfalfa is a very water intensive crop and is grown all over california. You can get 7 tons per acre per year at a value of $220 per ton [1]. It requires 435,000 gallons of water per acre per year [2].

[1] https://coststudyfiles.ucdavis.edu/uploads/cs_public/f2/0e/f...

[2] https://www.arb.ca.gov/fuels/lcfs/workgroups/lcfssustain/han...

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Re:California-Grown Coffee Is Becoming the State's Next Gold... by valleyer on Saturday February 17, 2018 @02:38PM (#16402312)

Am I missing something? That still sounds profitable just based on the data I read in these comments:

7 ton / acre * $220 / ton - (435000 gallon / acre * $0.40 / 1000 liter)

$881.34 / acre

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Re:California-Grown Coffee Is Becoming the State's Next Gold... by ghshephard on Saturday February 17, 2018 @02:51PM (#16402377)

Your math checks out - of the top of my head, 435,000 gallons is approx 1.6 million liters - 1600 m^3 * $0.4/m^3 = ~$640/acre of water, for $1440 of product, or ~ $800 profit (for just water costs)

One variable we are missing is transport costs - that $0.40 is for generation, and transportation of water from the ocean to the central valley would probably be expensive.

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Re:California-Grown Coffee Is Becoming the State's Next Gold... by Moto7451 on Sunday February 18, 2018 @02:28AM (#16404917)

Alfalfa is also a nitrogen fixer, so on top of being something farmers can sell it reduces furtilizer costs.

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Re:California-Grown Coffee Is Becoming the State's Next Gold... by anubisresources on Saturday February 17, 2018 @02:44PM (#16402348)

Obviously your equation is a big simplification, but you’re missing a lot of the input costs.

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