[dragonwriter]

> Why do crops need to be grown in California or 'shipped' to China? Can't these crops be provided by other states in the U.S. that are more conducive to farming?

If they could, they would.

> It seems California is not a great state for farming, and was engineered to be suitable.

No place is a great place for modern farming, which requires considerable man-made infrastructure in any case. But in terms of things that you can't easily engineer around (except, recently, fresh water within a convenient collection area) California is a very good place for farming.

[pkaye]

What about Colorado? Seems like a good place for agriculture. And they are getting more rain than California at this time.

[dragonwriter]

> What about Colorado? Seems like a good place for agriculture.

Most of the parts of Colorado that are good for agriculture (e.g., not the Rockies) are already being used for agriculture. You can't really replace the area of California currently being used for agriculture with agriculture-suitable land in Colorado that isn't already being used for agriculture.

[cwal37]

Does Colorado[1] really look like such a great place to grow crops? Particularly in the context of what we're talking about here, water availability, snowpack changes, etc. Also, Colorado via Drought Monitor[3].

Iowa[2] for comparison.

[1] https://www.google.com/maps/place/Colorado/@38.9252672,-105....

[2] https://www.google.com/maps/place/Iowa/@41.9383166,-93.38979...

[3] http://droughtmonitor.unl.edu/Home/StateDroughtMonitor.aspx?...

[Balgair]

Ummm, because there is snow there and not in Salinas.

[AnimalMuppet]

Right. But the snow there means that there's going to be water there...

[dragonwriter]

Temperature (and, particularly for many crops, frequency and duration of freezes) is an important consideration in growing crops. Water is important, too, but its not the only consideration in agriculture.

[pkaye]

But Minnesota is one of the top agriculture states and being up north, they have more severe winters.

[dragonwriter]

> But Minnesota is one of the top agriculture states and being up north, they have more severe winters.

It also has a very different crop mix than California.