It’s good that the water debate is starting to take more shape. In the main we have struggled with the idea that we should pay for it and how to construct proper markets around it. Some places meter water and some don’t but as we know it’s hard to manage a resource if you can’t measure it use.

So it’s refreshing to see a piece in The Press  on the need for a water market to be constructed to provide an efficient allocation of this precious resource. As I’ve discussed many times, a resource with no price will be treated as if it is free. For many people water is free and always has been but now there are competing claims on water. In New Zealand this is primarily from agriculture with huge demands for irrigation from the dairy industry, which converts water into milk on an enormous scale.

Initial objections are alway around the issue that water is a necessity for life and should therefore be free.  Well so is food and shelter and they aren’t. We have lived with the false notion that water will always be plentiful and is a constant renewable resource. Tell that to Australian farmers who have suffered a 5 year drought in many areas. Water availability is subject to climatic variation and to overuse. Just look at the state of NZ rivers and lakes which are well known to have experienced a serious decline in quality over the last 20 years of intensive farming.

It’s fairly simple to make sure people are allocated a fair supply of free water to assuage those who believe they shouldn’t pay for it but anything above a basic amount should be paid for just like our energy.

It’s only through the pain of payment that we really focus our efforts on conservation, efficiency and alternatives.

It’s time we got on with this whilst we still have water to charge for.

I came across this humdinger of a letter to Hillary Clinton at the Celsias site. Whilst it could be regarded as some kind of political stunt it does raise serious issues about the nature of our globalised food chain.

I have never been a fan of Monsanto and there despicable deeds have been well recorded. But as we have seen with the impact of biofuels, the whole food production process is changing and judging from the price increases not for the betterment of consumers. A new term has been coined: Agflation

In New Zealand we are seeing the benefits and costs of food price rises. Our diary farmers are raking it in but consumers are suffering. But consumers are taking action; they are eating less meat and dairy; they are reinstating the veggie patch and being more circumspect about their shopping habits.

This brings several benefits: healthwise less meat and dairy is generally good for you; growing your own veggies creates a sense of self-sufficiency, gets you in touch with nature and you get to eat really fresh food; there is a greater focus on food and what you eat with many people finding it cheaper to avoid processed food and make your own from scratch.

Isn’t that what many activists have been calling for for a long time? And the reason that this is happening? The price mechanism.

People respond to price signals. And when the respond they can be very smart about it. There’s a lesson in here for the bureaucrats and activists.

Let’s hope they find it