Posted on 12/24/2016 12:15:54 PM PST by EveningStar
Food scientists at Cornell University have produced a strain of broccoli that thrives in hot environments, which may make it possible for states with stiflingly hot summers to grow the vegetable. California, where cool coastal fog is perfect for growing standard broccoli, currently produces more than 90 percent of the broccoli grown in the United States. If California were to disappear, what would the American diet be like?
Expensive and grainy. California produces a sizable majority of many American fruits, vegetables, and nuts: 99 percent of artichokes, 99 percent of walnuts, 97 percent of kiwis, 97 percent of plums, 95 percent of celery, 95 percent of garlic, 89 percent of cauliflower, 71 percent of spinach, and 69 percent of carrots (and the list goes on and on). Some of this is due to climate and soil. No other state, or even a combination of states, can match California's output per acre. Lemon yields in California, for example, are more than 50 percent higher than in Arizona. California spinach yield per acre is 60 percent higher than the national average. Without California, supply of all these products in the United States and abroad would dip, and in the first few years, a few might be nearly impossible to find. Orchard-based products in particular, such as nuts and some fruits, would take many years to spring back.
(Excerpt) Read more at slate.com ...
Come on Calexit-if they can still grow fruit, nuts, and vegetables on their farm collectives we will buy them and sell them water to grow them. They would collapse in short ledger on their own devices. Sane Californians should be pushing for breaking into 2 or 3 states.
check to see what counties that produce all of that food are red or blue?
Same here. Even though South Tennessee is hot, broccoli will grow here if you start it early. Our growing season is very long. I would eat whatever I could grow and I have blueberry bushes, blackberries, apple trees and plums. We can even grow turnip greens most of the winter and we also have almost 50-acres that we could put livestock on.
I think the west coast liberals would starve a long time before we would.
Heh! :) Accuracy still counts. :)
What happens??? Well, our gardens get larger, we build root cellars adjoining our houses, discover the joy of canning and preserving, using the time wasted watching degenerate entertainment produced in Hollywood, hunt, fish and get back in touch with reality and life the way it was meant to be.
Besides, under control of the left-wing, most agriculture in the Peoples Republic of California will not be allowed water and permits. They have to save the Delta Smelt and Snail Darter.
We will soldier on, and yes, home made sauerkraut is excellent! Do not even compare it to commercial products.
CALexit
guess the liberal rag Salon is against CALexit. Liberals are terrified of losing those 55 electoral college votes
The author avoids the cause of the crisis he is forecasting, but hints at it here: “The land under irrigation grew four-fold from 1889 to 1914.”
The cause of his crisis, as I see it, the destruction of California agriculture by the radical environmentalists who think more of a minnow than of using the water for irrigation of crop lands. It is the state government of California and its policies that are destroying California agriculture and bringing on the crisis the author laments that will happen.
Unsustainable Democrat spending has California hurtling toward bankruptcy. Our only hope is the democrat party implodes first. Have no idea what will rise from the ashes.
You grow your own beef and venison?
...wow
California would be desperate to sell it if it were a foreign nation as it doesn’t even have enough water or electricity production to support its population
Obverting the question, if California didn’t have los Estados Unidos as produce customers, how would they survive?
naturally, this Slate moron betrays his fundamental ignorance of economics.
Well, the inland agricultural counties in California voted mainly for Trump. The productive hard working people in those areas suffer under the boots of dictatorial hoards of free-loading coastal liberals, as much or more than we do.
How does nj look? You do know it is called “the garden State” for a reason don’t you?
It won’t matter. California is cutting off the water to the farmers so that the elites can have pretty landscaping. They aren’t going to be able to grow these things much longer. We might as well get used to living without California agriculture.
The author of this article appears to be confusing secession with a total embargo of all goods produced there. But there is no reason to assume that if California seceded, it would refuse to trade with the remaining 49 states.
The biggest problem with invading California is the danger that we might succeed. If we can ever get rid of California, why would we want it back?
Huh? Grass Hoppers are Good.
So are crickets, big earthworms, lizards, and snakes[prepared right. When prepared correctly, use the SAS Survival cooking book.
I’d surmise that the part of California providing fruits and vegetables is the “red” part of the state.
The Blueish part is just a few heavy spots on the west most west part of the state.
Commercial tomatoes are thick skinned so they can be machine harvested, but I understand your point.
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