I don't want to put words in the GP's mouth... but I believe GPs point is more akin to "one snowflake = one snowflake" (to use your analogy).
In other words: California does not value water equally between use cases -- to the point where certain crops are exploiting that imbalance. E.g. almonds might be a special case since, while water intensive, there may be fewer alternative geographies. Cattle, however, are plenty-viable elsewhere & shouldn't receive such an imbalanced incentive to consume water.
One natural starting point: One liter of water is priced uniformly regardless of use...
