Semantics. Name something on the commodities list that isn't "traded" for dollars.
Commodities are simply products, usually agricultural but not necessarily, that are sold under contract in advance of them being actually available. These contracts are called futures. Most metals are "traded" on the commodities market as well. A farmer may sell his soy bean crop to a buyer for an agreed upon price before it is even harvested. This guarantees both the buyer and seller a known price regardless of what happens to the spot price between the agreement to purchase and the delivery of that product. Water futures are bought and sold all the time. ask the state of California how much water they buy from other states as well as Canada.
Water: The Ultimate Commodity
Water: A Precious Commodity - Forbes
Water is the new gold, a big commodity bet - MarketWatch
They would like to try to make it a commodity if they could. It would be so easy to hold a knife at the throat of everyone if those in power can do to water as they can do with oil.
I know that the State of CA pulls this routine every time there is a lean rain year. But the truth is; we don't use water from reservoirs or lakes.
Reservoirs, streams, rivers, ponds, lakes, and percolation ponds all have one thing in common; they feed the underground water sources. Most of the drinking water that everyone uses every day comes from this source. Water is purified by the filtration as it passes through layers of topsoil, sand, gravel, and rocks to clean and process it before it reaches this 'aquifer'. More surface water from those sources mentioned above will filter down assuring an aquifer is kept fully charged.
Most farmers on the Great Plains depend upon the rains to grow crops. I do in Iowa. However, those farmers along/above the High Plains; the Ogallala Aquifer is tapped into that source for crop irrigation.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ogallala_Aquifer
The underground water aquifer level is so high at the farm in Iowa - that even though there was a drought - we still managed to get 7/8 of a normal crop. This year will also have drought conditions; so the price of corn and soybeans will be at an all-time high with less supply and the same demand. Haven't yet sold the bean crop from last year; as I know that the price will go up beyond previous record levels.
Also worth mentioning, is that they have literally quadrupled the cost of fertilizers derived as a by product of the de-fractionation of oil. For no other reason that they can; so they did. This has and will push up the cost of the American farmer to do business and feed the country. That is just pure profit-taking; so don't even blame the farmer. He works very hard to earn a real living . . .
