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 38 water factory to rice fields DHJanzen100034.jpg high resolution
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| And the drip, drip, drip - inside the white layer of clouds on the three volcanos in the ACG at the top of this image - runs together into many little streams that run together into this one large river that flows out of the ACG - oops, water factory - and through this major rice farm area. From the river it is pumped as irrigation for the rice fields bordering the river. This is an ecosystem service, an ecosystem good. Today, it is a free good - but it should be paid for by the farming community, just as it pays for its other inputs to the rice field. But again, the complications arise. If one charges for the water, the profit margin is so slim on these farms that it will put some of them out of business. So, now we have the conserved wildland subsidizing the rice fields adjacent to the ACG - when most of society thinks of the process as being the other way around. | ||
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