The Economics of California’s Drought
California is the world’s fifth-largest supplier of food, a big reason why the state would, if an independent country, be the 7th largest economy in the world.
.. Irrigation claims up to 41 percent of the state’s water supply, while cities such as Los Angeles and San Francisco demand comparatively little. Crops such as almonds, grown exclusively in California in the United States, consume 600 gallons of water per pound of nuts, more than 25 times the water needed per pound of tomato. These water-intensive crops tend to have high profit margins, providing farmers with an incentive to plant them.