I can see where they might not think of CA that way as it is not the only game in town and the whole water situation might come into play at some point.

It should be noted that at least one "farm state" (ND) is becoming much more of an oil state in recent years. It looks like this will continue as they just discovered another reserve that is bigger than the current one.

If you have some free money, building rental housing in northwest ND is a very safe bet.

//edited because of odd autocorrect