I read that 10% of the water used goes to growing Almonds. I don’t know if that is true, and I am not anti-almonds they are good. But I don’t know if they represent the true cost when you factor in what everyone else has to do to subsidize them. If we need to cut 20% of usage, almond growers would account for half of the savings.
And that is always a problem - government mandates always end up distorting markets often in ways that are not obvious. If instead of making everyone change out their toilets they just charged the market price for water then the cost of Almonds would reflect that consumption.
I don’t know, but if farming is using up 80% of California water, then I would sure like to learn more about how they got there, and what keeps them there, and if it is all being done legitimately and without corruption and subsidies, and such.