[abosley]

But the water. What about the water necessary to "restore the soil". The soil in question of course, was non-productive desert 50 years ago. We are doing input intensive farming in areas where the complex supply chain necessary to support is causing what some people call "externalities". Others, the tragedy of the commons. Well run societies try to use regulation to keep this from happening.

[bsder]

Those are two different and separate arguments.

"We shouldn't be growing anything out there." is an argument that the agribusinesses don't want to have.

"We shouldn't be growing alfalfa out there." is a nice distraction argument that the agribusinesses are happy to have because it concedes that we should be farming the area.