Ronald Domont: Farmers should find a new occupation

To the food growers: The writing is on the wall. Water, which has been the most under-priced resource on the planet, will become drastically more expensive and less available for farming. So what is the farming industry supposed to do?

Well, miners in coal country faced the same dilemma. So they went into other fields. The smart ones among you will begin transitioning as soon as possible. What so you have plenty of? That’s easy: sun and seawater. So what you do is get in touch with WaterFX and try to become a water-desalination facility. Then you take that water and use it to begin growing hydroponically along with raising fish in a tank using the overflow of fish-enriched water pumped to the vegetable facility. If you have any extra water there are plenty of buyers. You sell the vegetables and the fish and voila! You have a brand new business model not dependent on fresh water.

You could also work with your state legislators to ask for a lawmaking every swimming pool use saltwater, which is water that is not completely desalinated but partially, and this too would bring you additional profits. Good luck to you all.

Editor’s note: Perhaps the writer has Merced confused with Monterey; Merced is 80 miles from the nearest ocean.

This story was originally published April 13, 2015 at 2:22 PM with the headline "Ronald Domont: Farmers should find a new occupation."