[LINK] seventh most popular NYTimes article today

[Jan Whitaker]

At 01:26 PM 12/11/2006, Craig Sanders wrote:
>similarly, if we stopped growing (and worse, subsidising)
>water-intensive crops like cotton and rice in desert areas, there
>wouldn't BE a water shortage. (rice! in the desert!  FFS!)

Exactly. In Phoenix, Arizona, which is in the middle of a desert, 
much of the public understood and didn't put in Eastern US plants. 
And there was a shift required in the economy there. Would you 
believe that TWO of the main economic mainstays of the state were 
Cotton and Citrus? Both were high irrigation users. And the cotton 
was pretty bad to boot. Citrus was nice, but wasn't a logical crop 
for the area at all.

The other two Cs were Copper and Cattle, in case you were wondering. 
At least there wasn't the dreaded R....

Jan


Jan Whitaker
JLWhitaker Associates, Melbourne Victoria
jwhit at janwhitaker.com
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'Seed planting is often the most important step. Without the seed, 
there is no plant.' - JW, April 2005
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