Crops don’t move themselves, they require trucks and ships. Importing 1 plant to feed a human is less water and energy intensive than importing 10 plants to feed a cow to feed a human.
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Irrefutably. The problem is people prefer to eat the cow. And while it's nice to imagine a different world, "everyone should just want different things" is not really a valid policy prescription to solve specific land- and water-use questions.
If the price of water was the same for human and agricultural use then the cost of the beef would increase and more people would stop eating it and eat the cheaper plants instead. This would also decrease energy usage helping with climate change.
When we subsidize the price of water for agriculture then people will do wasteful and stupid things to make more money like growing water rich alfalfa and shipping it to China and Japan to feed their livestock.
See the link I posted in the thread.
Yes. "the price of ag water in CA should be higher to discourage uneconomic uses" is a valid policy prescription; its impact on the price of beef, and consumption thereof is less foreseeable.