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> An example would be to remove the $50b per year water subsidies for the beef industry Do you have a source for that? Every one I have been able to find indi

> An example would be to remove the $50b per year water subsidies for the beef industry Do you have a source for that? Every one I have been able to find indicates that total meat and dairy subsidies are less than that, let alone just water subsidies for the beef industry.

mark_l_watson 7y ago
Sorry, that was from memory, reading Diet for a Small Planet. I found one source for $38b for meat and fairly subsidies, but that likely includes things besides water subsidies. I agree that $50b is too high of an estimate.
ryanmercer 7y ago
I doubt it's a remotely accurate figure. However, cattle consume a LOT of water. 20~ gallons per head per day is a fairly accurate figure and the US has something like 95 million cows. So with farming and animal husbandry water rights are a big thing. Often water rights will go to farmers/ranchers long before they go to people. So you've got cows, with a conservative estimate, using 500 billion gallons of water a year in the U.S. alone just for drinking. Obviously most of that is coming from natural sources but that has financial impacts on the treated water that ends up pumped to your house/business via pipes. How big is that financial impact? shrugs I highly doubt it's close to 50 billion USD a year though. They definitely do get comparatively obscene amounts of financial benefit though. Water rights, forage disaster, livestock compensation, indemnity payments, feed assistance, general relief, then you have to think about what sort of subsidies the growers get that then gets passed through as a benefit in the price of the feed going to the livestock... Man I love meat, I love love love meat, but I switched to primarily whole food plant based last year. WFPB is far more sustainable as far as water and land, arguably much healthier, requires far less fossil fuel input, and noticeably cheaper (my weekly grocery bill as halved).
- BlueTemplar 7y ago
  And who knows if that water even comes from renewable sources...

mark_l_watson 7y ago

Sorry, that was from memory, reading Diet for a Small Planet. I found one source for $38b for meat and fairly subsidies, but that likely includes things besides water subsidies. I agree that $50b is too high of an estimate.

ryanmercer 7y ago

I doubt it's a remotely accurate figure. However, cattle consume a LOT of water. 20~ gallons per head per day is a fairly accurate figure and the US has something like 95 million cows. So with farming and animal husbandry water rights are a big thing. Often water rights will go to farmers/ranchers long before they go to people. So you've got cows, with a conservative estimate, using 500 billion gallons of water a year in the U.S. alone just for drinking. Obviously most of that is coming from natural sources but that has financial impacts on the treated water that ends up pumped to your house/business via pipes. How big is that financial impact? shrugs I highly doubt it's close to 50 billion USD a year though. They definitely do get comparatively obscene amounts of financial benefit though. Water rights, forage disaster, livestock compensation, indemnity payments, feed assistance, general relief, then you have to think about what sort of subsidies the growers get that then gets passed through as a benefit in the price of the feed going to the livestock... Man I love meat, I love love love meat, but I switched to primarily whole food plant based last year. WFPB is far more sustainable as far as water and land, arguably much healthier, requires far less fossil fuel input, and noticeably cheaper (my weekly grocery bill as halved).

BlueTemplar 7y ago
And who knows if that water even comes from renewable sources...